


the world turned upside down

by ascloseasthis



Series: the world turned upside down [1]
Category: Homeland
Genre: Alternate Canon, Angst, Discussion of Abortion, F/M, Pregnancy, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-07-15 16:56:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 40,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7230853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ascloseasthis/pseuds/ascloseasthis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of the Langley bombing, Carrie struggles to move forward and to forgive herself. (2x12 reimagined. Brody, the presumed CIA bomber, dies in the blast.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Trust. It’s all about trust, right.

Right.

Langley explodes, Brody inside — Carrie’s safe of course, he saw to that, he said: “You should go with Saul.” He was in full military dress, pristine and somber, superficially anyway, and his face betrayed nothing when he kissed her goodbye. “See this thing through,” he had said, and it had made sense.

This, though. It’s too big to process, the enormity of it. It’s all her fault, and evidently Saul agrees because he tells her, coldly, to go home. 

-

She takes two Xanax and stops at a liquor store to stock up. The clerk makes an obligatory comment — “having a party?” he asks, mouth twisting into a knowing smirk, and Carrie wonders who the _fuck_ buys a half-dozen bottles of Stoli for a goddamn _party_. 

-

Carrie isn’t home five minutes when a knock at the door catches her attention. She finishes pouring the vodka into a glass, adds a splash of tonic water. She doesn’t know why she’s bothering. She doesn’t have any limes, doesn’t know who she’s pretending she’s civilized for. It’s probably her sister.

“Just a sec,” she calls out. She puts the alcohol back in the freezer and checks the safety on her gun. Just in case. 

She’s stunned, thoroughly, by the sight of Quinn outside her door, weighed down by two voluminous bags of takeout. “Quinn,” she manages, but it’s a mangled gasp of his name, hot relief twisting at the bottom of her stomach. 

“I got Italian,” he says, by way of greeting. “Uh, you’re still — are you still vegetarian?”

Carrie blinks dumbly, and takes a couple of steps back to let him in. “You’re alive,” she says. She can’t believe it — it’s a fucking miracle, _he_ is, whole and unscathed and standing in her foyer. 

“I talked to Saul,” he tells her. She closes the door and just watches him as he strides nonchalantly into her living room, depositing the bags on her coffee table before turning back to look at her earnestly. “I thought we lost you.” 

He’s on her immediately and all of a sudden, wrapping her up tightly against his tall, solid frame. “I’m so sorry,” he mutters, his breath hot on her hair. Carrie buries her face in his chest, struggles to breathe in the space between their bodies — wishes she could be absorbed. 

“He told me to go with Saul,” she manages. “He made sure I wasn’t there, Quinn, and I don’t — I will never know why.” 

“He loved you,” Quinn points out simply, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. 

Carrie steps back. She regrets it immediately, resents him a little, too, for the loss of contact. “Right,” she says, with a laugh that borders on hysterical. “He bombed my fucking workplace, Quinn. Killed — god even knows who, and he made sure I’d be here to see it. He made me think I was crazy too, and — and I think maybe I was, because I knew his story. I knew about the vest, I knew _everything_. And I still didn’t fucking see this coming.”

“Nobody did, Carrie.” His voice is softer than she’s ever heard it, gentle as anything. “I fucked up too,” he adds. 

“I don’t follow,” she says. She’s so off-balance, she’s wary. 

There’s a wicked twitch in his jaw; Carrie feels the seconds ticking between them. “Got anything to drink?” he asks finally. 

“Vodka.” 

“I’ll take it.” 

“It’s not _good_ vodka,” she warns him wryly. 

Quinn follows her into the kitchen, watches as she drops some ice cubes into a glass. He doesn’t ask for a mixer and she doesn’t offer one — just hands the drink to him, wordless, and watches him drain it. “I’m not an analyst,” he confesses. He smiles a little at Carrie’s scoff, her muttered _no shit_. “Estes brought me in from special forces. My orders were to terminate Brody.”

Nothing can surprise her anymore, apparently. “But you didn’t,” she says. “Why didn’t you?” 

Quinn shrugs. “He held up his end of the deal. I didn’t think he was a threat.”

Carrie feels a little vindicated on that point, actually, because to some extent she always _did_. But she saw him, too, in a way most people probably didn’t. She chews on her lip. “That why you got benched?” A jolt goes through her. “Wait, did Saul _know?_ ” 

“Nobody fuckin’ knew, Carrie,” he claims dryly. 

“Then why are you here?” she demands, head tilted — she’s suspicious to a fault. “You can’t tell me Saul didn’t want _you_ around.” 

“I don’t answer to Saul.” His point, unassailable, staggers her for a moment. Quinn takes advantage of her momentary silence. “Plates?” 

She gestures toward the cabinet, grabs silverware from a drawer. “You didn’t answer my question.” 

“Yeah, well, it was a stupid question,” he tells her, voice snide. “Happy to get outta your hair, though, just say the fucking word.” 

“No,” she says, too quick and too adamant. “I’m glad you’re here, Quinn, I… I don’t think I can be alone right now, actually.” 

He rewards her with a small smile, lips barely curved but somehow it still transforms his entire face. “As long as you need, Carrie,” he promises, accommodating in a way that surprises her less and less. 

“You know, it wouldn't have made a difference anyway,” Carrie admits, resigned. “Nazir outflanked us. _Me_. Brody was just plan A.”

Quinn doesn't say anything. Carrie takes a sip of her own drink, swallows, feels the burn of the alcohol in her throat. She welcomes it too. “I'm glad you didn't kill him,” she adds, carefully honest. She can't look at him. “At least this way I'm not losing you too.”

She means it as an apology, couches it in an admission. 

“You never answered _my_ question,” Quinn says, a little challenging, changing the subject. Carrie cocks her head, confused. “Are you still vegetarian?” 

Carrie can’t help but smile, almost loses herself in it. “I’m surprised you remembered,” she says, looks up at him with shining eyes. “Quinn?” 

“Yeah, Carrie.”

“ _Thank you_.”


	2. Chapter 2

They eat in the living room, television tuned to CNN to appease Carrie’s guilty masochistic longing. Quinn’s quick to mute it, though, for which Carrie is grateful — doubly so when Brody’s image fills the screen, his careful military posture.

Quinn has to nudge her to eat, actually fills a plate and waits poised with a piece of eggplant speared on the edge of a fork. “For fuck’s sake, Quinn,” Carrie snaps half-heartedly, but he doesn’t engage her attitude. He just sits there patiently, eyebrow raised, fork hovering. Seconds pass. “Fine,” she gives in. She takes a bite and then trades him her empty glass for the full plate.

“Thank you,” he says, completely backward. “For not being difficult,” he clarifies, at her confused look. _Always anticipating a fight,_ Carrie muses — not that she’s ever given him much reason to expect anything else.

“For once,” she supplies, imitating him seriously.

“You said it.” His lips twitch upward though, and Carrie can’t help smiling back. “Now eat your fucking dinner.”

The scene on the TV shifts abruptly, black and then fading into the smoldering wreckage of her workplace. Photos of the known casualties blink over the footage — Carrie wonders how many of her colleagues are still buried in the debris.

Quinn says, gently, “you wanna talk about it?”

“Define ‘it,’” Carrie stalls.

Quinn doesn’t bite. “This is a nightmare,” Carrie says instead, just something to shift the silence. As if on cue, there’s Estes, imperious as she remembers him in a clip from a press conference. “He brought you in, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“What’d he tell you about me?”

“He told me you were a… brilliant agent,” Quinn says, after a moment’s consideration.

Carrie side-eyes him. “What else?”

“He said you were a pain in the ass.”

“Did he tell you I ruined his life?” Quinn maintains a blank expression, not that that means anything, Carrie knows. He’s cultivated this mask of his so carefully that in some ways it’s his most defining feature. A sharp laugh escapes her. “For fuck’s sake, Quinn, he’s dead. You don’t have to keep his secrets.”

Quinn has the grace to look irritated now. “He actually didn’t tell me shit, Carrie. He called Dar, said he needed a guy. I didn’t ask questions, I just did my fuckin’ job.”

“Implying that I don’t?”

“Nah, Carrie, I’d say you go above and beyond.” She’s stunned by the judgment, so uncharacteristic of him. He softens. “You didn’t ruin anybody’s life, all right?”

She shakes her head, feels a derisive laugh bubbling up. “You don't know.”

“So why don't you tell me?” Infinitely patient. She’s silent. “Or we don’t have to… you don’t have to watch this.”

“I think I need another drink,” she just says.

Quinn obliges, like always. He snatches the empty glasses off the table and heads for the kitchen, not without another gesture toward the plate balanced on Carrie’s knees.

As soon as he’s out of sight, Carrie exhales.

She feels like she’s in the eye of the hurricane — at any moment it might change course and destroy her. “He was the best liar I’ve ever fucking met,” she blurts out when Quinn comes back. He presents her with a drink, more ice than liquid, and then glances back at the TV. The video is rolling now, soundless, not like it matters. The words are burned into her memory. She can’t look away.

“I’m turning this off,” he says, no-nonsense.

Carrie goes to object, but the words die before they even reach her lips. He’s leaving no room for argument — which usually wouldn’t be a deterrent, honestly, but the unguarded concern in his eyes is too _much_. The screen goes dark and he moves the remote control out of her reach, obviously anticipating a protest.

“You wanna talk about it?” he says, again, once he’s settled in beside her.

“Brody?”

“No, the fuckin’ Nationals.”

Carrie pauses. “My dad is mooning over Stephen Strasburg.”

This earns her a chuckle. She smiles wryly in return.

“I was gonna leave,” she confesses. “For him, I was — I _never_ — I just… fuck, Quinn. I’ve been agency for a while, now, and I have this. My _condition_. I’ve spent half my life convinced that I was gonna be alone forever, just like my dad’s been since… and Jesus, I don’t know. But for like forty-five minutes, I thought maybe there was another way.”

Carrie feels her throat start to tighten with tears. Quinn’s usual stoicism is on full display, but she can read him pretty well now, she thinks, and she makes a decision. “I need to tell you something,” she says. “I’m gonna trust you with something."

“Okay.” He’s being so fucking careful, she can tell.

She lets out a breath, steeling herself. “I didn’t escape from Abu Nazir.”

Quinn stiffens beside her. “What?” His voice is sharp and flat, he rounds on her with his gaze.

“He _kidnapped_ me, Quinn. _That_ happened. That was _real_. He had me zip-tied to a fucking rail in a warehouse, I was being held hostage, scared out of my mind. I thought I was gonna die, but he didn’t — he didn’t kill me, he called Brody.”

Her voice is starting to quiver, the effort of holding back her tears is getting exhausting. Quinn shifts closer, puts his arm around her shoulder in a gesture that’s become familiar, almost symbolic. She turns her face to him, and the memory hits her hard; Quinn, after her so-called escape, concern beyond colleagues. His jacket light on her shoulders, his arm heavy wrapped around her — chaos everywhere, but calm with him.

She’s not _going_ to trust him, she realizes. She does. She has.

Carrie takes a deep breath.

“He called Brody,” she repeats. “He threatened to kill me, he said — he told Brody that if he didn’t get the serial number to the Vice President’s pacemaker, he’d kill me. And Brody made a choice. Me or Walden, Quinn, he… so I didn’t say anything. That was it. They set up the attack picture fucking perfect, Quinn. It’s my fault.”

“It isn’t,” he says.

“No, it is. It is, Quinn.”

“I would have done the same thing,” he tells her.

Carrie wonders, but doesn’t ask: _for who?_

“I’m glad you’re here,” she says instead, and lets her head drop to his shoulder. Feels, for the first time in forever, genuinely safe.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, have a chapter from Q's perspective. Thanks as usual to Leblanc1.

The confessions, tears, and emotional revelations leave Carrie wrung out and dehydrated. After hours of crying on Quinn’s shoulder, she runs out of steam and he can feel her breathing change when she starts to fall to sleep. Her entire body seems to relax, molding against him, into his side. He pulls her closer, briefly indulging himself before he comes to his senses.

“Fuck me,” he mutters, letting his head fall back.

Carrie stirs beneath the arm settled around her shoulders, answering with a sleepy “nngh?”

“Nothing, Carrie, come on.” He helps her carefully to her feet, steadying her as she immediately slumps against his chest, but she gets her legs moving just enough to let him guide her to bedroom. For a moment he considers carrying her, but this is already too much. He shouldn’t be here and he knows it.

It takes him a couple of extra seconds to find the light switch, but he gets it and Carrie blinks at the sudden brightness. She disengages and goes to sit on her bed. Quinn makes a move to exit, but Carrie has recovered her senses, to some extent at least, and she says his name.

“Yeah?”

“Are you leaving?”

He considers the question. He should, absolutely. He should be halfway across the world, honestly, as far away from Carrie Mathison as the planet allows, because this? Is not him. It’s never been him.

“I’m getting you some water.”

She accepts this with a nod and lets her head drop to the pillow. Quinn stops in the doorway for a long moment before he heads to the kitchen and holds a glass under the tap while he checks his phone.

He’s got three missed calls, eight texts, from Dar alone. _So that asshole is still alive_ , Quinn thinks, and realizes he doesn’t have any particularly strong feelings about that. Not like he did when he found out that Carrie hadn’t been on-site for the blast. The relief had been so potent he’d almost collapsed on the spot.

There’s a message from Saul, too, asking him to report to Langley at 8am. He swipes it open and keys in a quick “okay” before realizing it’s a group text. Carrie’s copied on it too.

Only Carrie.

Quinn exhales and turns off the faucet.

He expects to find Carrie completely passed out, even with the lights on, so he’s surprised when he walks into the room and finds her clothes pooled in a mess on the floor. She pads barefoot into the room in yoga pants and a baggy t-shirt, face clean of her dried tears. The bruises, though, remains of Nazir, are more prominent without whatever makeup she’s been using to cover them up.

“Jesus, Carrie,” he says, unable to stop staring despite the fact that he was _there_ , he saw the damage when it was fresh.

“What’s a few bruises,” she replies flippantly, and then sighs. “Especially…” She gestures vaguely.

Quinn gets it. “You should drink some water.”

“Are you leaving?” she asks again, alert enough this time to register whatever non-answer he tries to give her.

“I don’t have to,” he says evasively. He’s rewarded with an almost-smile, a twitch at the corner of her mouth. “Saul texted. He wants us to come in tomorrow.”

“Us?” she questions, a little doubtful. Quinn nods and pulls out his phone to show her. “So, what, we carpool?” She examines the text message. “Where’s my phone?”

"Where'd you leave it?"

“Well, can you _call_ it?”

He does. There’s a faint buzzing, too quiet to be really helpful, and Carrie wanders off in search of the source. He looks at the messages from Dar — they want to send him back to Syria, apparently. Quinn waits for the familiar pull of the mission, but it doesn’t come.

He deletes the messages. Carrie comes back.

“Do you think it’s just us?” she asks, flicking her finger across the screen. She’s got the text from Saul, and dozens of messages from people — he catches Maggie’s name, her dad’s. But it’s a blur of new texts; Carrie obviously has a lot of people who care about her. “Shit,” she says, and then brings the phone to her ear.

Quinn slouches back against the wall; he's never felt more out of place in his life than he does when Carrie is on the phone with her father. Her side of the conversation is harried but apologetic. Frank is speaking loudly enough that Quinn can hear it, the frustrated timbre of her father’s voice.

He’s impressed, and surprised, by the way Carrie is just taking it. She’s actually listening to him, nodding along as he chastises her, interjecting with _I’m sorrys_. It’s wholly unlike her, and he's mesmerized. He can’t look away.

After several minutes, she requests that her dad yield the phone to Maggie, and she has to explain it all over again — more apologies — before signing off with love to her nieces and a promise to visit. He wonders if she’ll wait for the bruises to fade.

“Sorry,” she says, and Quinn swears she's apologized more in the past five minutes than she has since he's known her. She stares at her phone for another few seconds, thumbing through her messages before, apparently, deciding not to bother. “I’m tired, Quinn.”

“Sleep,” he says easily. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“I thought you were staying.” Carrie’s voice is fretful, gray-green eyes wide with dismay. Quinn feels something unfamiliar blooming in his chest — he’s never seen her like this, and though he understands, superficially, that this is about her need for control — he’s pleased. Glad that he’s the one she’s clinging to, even if it's only because he's the one who's here.

“I’ll be right outside, Carrie,” he promises, trying to soothe her.

She shakes her head. “You don’t have to sleep on the couch. It’s not…” she trails off. “Stay with me, Quinn.”

This takes some processing, and he exhales. It’s as far from Carrie Mathison as he could possibly imagine, the self-sufficient superwoman who went chasing after one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists all on her own. She’s vulnerable and shaken and they’ll both probably regret this in the morning, whatever happens or doesn't. They’re overstepping.

But right now, he just wants to take care of her. It’s all he’s wanted since he made the decision to not pull the trigger — it’s why he showed up at Estes’s house and threatened the life of the Director of the CIA. It’s why he’s here now.

“You have an extra toothbrush?” he asks finally, and he watches Carrie exhale deeply and nod, a small grateful smile curving her lips.

She has to go into her closet to extract her nondescript go bag. A brand-new toothbrush is buried among other personal necessities — Quinn has a bag just like it. He notes the effort, too, a little pleased; she clearly doesn’t have a stash of toiletries for unexpected overnight guests.

“Thanks,” he says. She smiles, but doesn’t put the bag away, just nudges it against the wall with her foot — he knows she’ll have to replace what she took out.

Once he is in the bathroom he undresses perfunctorily. Unable to remember whether he has a change of clothes in the car, he hangs his button-down shirt on the back of the door and neatly folds his slacks. He finishes his evening ritual with a splash of cold water on his face, looks in the mirror and wonders what the fuck he is doing.

She’s already in bed when he returns from the bathroom. The overhead light is off. Carrie’s bedside lamp casts a soft glow in the room. “Welcome,” she offers, smiling, as he slides into bed beside her. As he does, she reaches to turn off the light.

“Remember when we met?” she asks, turning her head toward him. 

He flashes back to the ops room, the dark resentful look on her face. “You hated me.” He pauses thoughtfully and rolls toward her, propping his head up on his elbow so he can look at her, even if he can't quite see her. “When did that stop, by the way?”

“I don’t know.” The darkness compels honesty, it seems, because she adds, “but I was happy — _really_ happy — to see you today.”

Quinn finds her hand; she threads her fingers through his, and he squeezes reassuringly. “Couldn’t have called that.”

Carrie laughs, breathy and soft, and shifts closer to him. He lets her, releasing her hand and relaxing, letting his head fall back to the pillow and giving her space to crawl into his arms. She’s small stretched out against him, her head resting on his chest.

This isn’t what he signed up for, Quinn thinks, inhaling the scent of her hair. Platonic cuddling while she mourns a fucking terrorist.

“Carrie,” he says quietly, trying desperately to figure out a way out of this.

That is the moment Carrie chooses to kiss him for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and then they do it. BAM.


	4. Chapter 4

He gives her all of three seconds before he pulls away.

Carrie blinks, surprised. “Quinn,” she starts, but he interrupts.

“What the _fuck_ , Carrie?”

She doesn’t answer immediately, or at all, choosing instead to press herself even closer to him, her hand drifting to his bare chest. It’s not enough, Carrie thinks, for him to be here. She needs more.

Even in the darkness she can feel him staring at her. “Come on, Quinn,” she says, tilting her head up to place a light kiss on his jaw.

So quick he doesn’t give her the opportunity to register what’s happening, he flips her onto her back, bracketing her between his arms. While he’s got her pinned, he reaches for the lamp, flooding the room with light, exposing her blinking, frantic eyes. “Quinn,” she breathes, suddenly afraid of the assassin in her bed.

“This shit isn’t gonna work on me, Carrie,” he warns her, his voice a hoarse whisper. “I’m not gonna fuck you in the dark so you can play make-believe.”

She flinches a little at the implication, but recovers in an instant, catching the loophole inherent in his insult. “But you are gonna fuck me," she says shakily, trying to twist it into a question as she brings her hand to his face.

Quinn seems frustrated, even a little defeated, as he looks at her, searching. It feels like forever before he decides, or possibly succumbs, dipping down to kiss her _finally_. Caught beneath his solid frame, Carrie can only kiss him back, mouth open and a little desperate as his hand skims up her torso.

Carrie inhales sharply when his thumb brushes over her nipple. She can almost feel him smiling against her mouth, but it’s not there when he pulls away to divest her of her shirt. The loss of contact, brief and inevitable, is nonetheless unbearable. She pushes herself up on her elbows, wants to kiss him, but Quinn’s got his hands on her first.

"You sure?" he asks, voice ragged. Her pants are already halfway down her thighs, she's naked from the waist up. Carrie huffs in the affirmative, can't help admiring his control even as she feels the hard length of him against her — but she's silenced by his mouth on her before she's even gotten the yes out, his tongue slick on her areola as his fingers creep under the thin fabric of her underwear.

Her legs scissor apart obscenely under his touch. His hand stills at the juncture of her thighs for some reason, and Carrie thinks that if he doesn’t move soon she might knee him in the throat. Instead she arches back, urging him to press inside her. "Fuck, Carrie," he mutters, sounds so astonished she's almost insulted, but she loses her ability to think when his thumb presses lightly against her clit.

Carrie stutters his name, fucks up the one syllable of it so badly she’s pretty sure he laughs, tongue still on her skin. She twists her hand back into his hair and tugs on it, pulling him up to kiss him sloppily while his fingers work inside of her. Pleasure is building up, pulling her muscles taut — she can feel her blood pulsing through her body. "Please," she manages, but it's lost to his mouth.

He seems to anticipate her orgasm before she does, pulling away slightly so he can watch her, so her cries aren't muffled by his lips on hers. Carrie seizes up against him, her form rigid as electricity tears through her muscles, harnessed by her skin. Quinn's deft fingers prolong the pleasure, help guide the aftershocks through her until she comes back to herself, breathless.

"Thank you," she sighs, a little stupid. He doesn't seem to mind.

Quinn drops to the mattress beside her. His wet hand is still wrapped around her inner thigh. "My pleasure," he says dryly, his eyes flitting up to hers.

"That was definitely _my_ pleasure," Carrie replies.

She likes the sensation of his body stretched out alongside her too, tries to parse the feeling, unrecognizable, that's built up in her chest. It isn't until she twists her body into him and feels him move to accommodate that she gets it. She's safe.

Quinn’s a goddamn human sanctuary, tangible comfort. Carrie places her hand over his heart, feels it thumping madly under her palm.

He's watching her carefully, intent like he can actually read her thoughts, and maybe, she muses, he can. "Thank you," she says again, seriously, hoping that he'll understand the scope of what she's trying to convey. She's a little too naked to have that conversation, wants him a little too desperately, so she doesn't give him the chance to answer, or ask.

“Stop staring at me,” she orders him suddenly, disconcerted, heating under his gaze. She’s incredibly exposed, stripped bare except for the underwear that’s twisted at her knees, but he’s barely even looked away from her face. Quinn blinks, caught out, and Carrie presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth before going for the waistband of his boxers. She has to extract herself to get them off him, her fingers curling around the elastic as she move backward to the bottom of the bed.

Quinn helps, raising his hips slightly to give her better leverage — she takes a second to admire him before climbing up the long line of his body. “C’mere,” he mutters, reaching for her hand. She lets him grab her, falls clumsily forward. She catches herself with a palm on his chest but he’s lightning quick, Black-Ops in the bedroom, and he gets her on her back in a blur of motion.

“That’s gonna get old, Quinn,” she gasps breathlessly.

The look in his eyes is intense. “Are you fucking sure about this, Carrie?”

“That too,” she says, sliding one arm around his neck, not really sure what else to say. “Please, Quinn.”

Obliging, he nudges her legs apart so that he can settle between them. Carrie keeps her eyes on him, watching, until the instant that he drives his cock into her body. She gasps, overwhelmed by the feel of him, the size of him, and he stills, giving her a chance to adjust.

“Open your eyes, Carrie,” he commands. She obeys with an exhale and finds him watching, his eyes serious and steady. “Keep them open,” he adds, and at her nod he starts to thrust, slow and sure and just shy of satisfying.

He knows it, too, the motherfucker is doing it on purpose. “Harder,” she begs, and Quinn does, dropping the pretense of being careful. Carrie reaches for his shoulders, pulling herself closer to him, desperate for something to hold onto as he drives into her mercilessly, her plaintive cries inciting him further.

It’s all she can do to keep up with him and she’s so fucking close. “Please,” she manages, and he understands, brings his hand between them to find her clit. It’s almost nothing to bring her over the edge completely, the blood rushing in her ears when she comes. It goes on and on, her entire body seizing with pleasure, her fingernails digging into his shoulders.

He brings his forehead to hers, waiting her out. When her body relaxes, she kisses him, and he gives her a few seconds before he starts moving inside her again. Carrie buries her face in his shoulder, thoroughly caught up in the sensation — it only takes a few hard thrusts before Quinn comes too, groaning, hot and primal, and she feels him spill inside of her.

“Fuck,” Quinn mutters, once his breathing has steadied. “Carrie, are you—”

“Covered,” she promises, picturing the ring of pills in her medicine cabinet.

He relaxes, pulling out of her. Carrie sighs at the feeling, the lack of him. But he doesn’t let go of her, just settles her back in the bed and follows, pulling her close. Content, she rolls over to face him. “Quinn, I—”

Quinn cuts her off. “Carrie, sleep.”

“Okay.” She settles her head on his chest, feeling warm in his arms, and this time when she kisses him, he lets her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you to Leblanc1!


	5. Chapter 5

Carrie Mathison is neither an affectionate sleeper nor a considerate one, Peter discovers the first time he spends the night. He wakes to find her sprawled on her stomach, taking up most of the bed despite her diminutive stature, one arm stretched toward him, her palm resting on his abdomen. Simultaneously keeping him near and holding him at arm’s length, even in sleep.

He watches her for a while, the movement of her shoulders as she breathes. His first cogent thought is _fuck me_ , followed by genuine contemplation of the logistics of escape. He takes a long breath, forcing the panic down in the face of reality. They have a morning meeting in ninety minutes. They’ll have to deal with each other in short order, like it or not.

He ponders the hundreds who are dead and his heart is gripped by guilt and the irony of it. _Murphy’s Law of assassination_ , he thinks bitterly. _Sometimes the shot you don’t take is the one that does the most damage._

He sighs, bringing his attention back to the situation at hand. Death everywhere, fucking everywhere, and here he is trying to duck the morning after conversation. It’s amazing they’re both alive.

He is loath to rouse her. She needs the rest desperately, and — more to the point — he has no idea which version of Carrie he is going to encounter when she opens her eyes. He’s never met anybody quite like her, infuriating at her _best_ , zero to ten thousand in the blink of an eye.

 _Coffee_ , he thinks. It’s their currency, has been as long as he’s known her. He slips out of bed, out from under her arm, carefully so as not to disturb her. He finds his boxers on the floor and slides them on over his hips.

It occurs to him to worry that she might not even _have_ coffee — he caught the state of her kitchen last night. Booze, rice, and an abundance of frozen vegetables. He'll be shocked if she's not anemic.

But he finds a Keurig and a stockpile of K-cups in a drawer. Simple, efficient, inherently wasteful — _that’s about right_ , he thinks, considering everything he knows about her. He prepares two cups, black for both after a cursory investigation of her refrigerator yields baking soda and an empty Brita pitcher, and makes his way back to her bedroom.

For a few seconds he just watches her sleep, left arm still stretched across the bed, right arm akimbo and vanishing beneath her pillow. From what he can see of her face, she looks peaceful.

He sets one mug down on her bedside table and takes a tentative seat in what little space she’s not occupying on the bed. “Carrie,” he says quietly, bringing his hand gently to the small of her back — an intimacy newly earned. She emits a petulant sigh before her eyes slowly flutter open. “Carrie, you’ve gotta get up.”

“Quinn?” she mumbles. She rolls over onto her back, yawning. Her breath hitches when she actually sees him, and Quinn waits, uncomfortable, as she appears to process the memories of yesterday — and last night — that are flooding her mind. An afterthought, suddenly modest, she grabs the corner of the sheet to cover her naked body.

Eventually she seems to catch up, nodding to herself. He says, “morning.”

“Morning,” she echoes as a hand travels over her eyes and eventually rests on her forehead. She looks up at him. “Fuck,” she says, and he can tell that everything is coming into focus.

“Yeah.” There’s nothing to say, really, so he offers her the mug.

She pushes herself into a seated position before taking the coffee. “Thanks.” She’s sleepily beautiful, curled up half-naked on the bed in front of him.

“Anytime,” he says, and her eyes fly from the edge of the mug where she was sipping her coffee to his face. Her shoulders relax as she realizes he’s teasing her. He’s wearing a wry smile. He can do this. They can handle this.

“How much time do we have?”

“An hour.”

She nods and exhales. “Thank you,” she says, all sincerity, and he knows it’s about just being there. For _staying_. It’s not a time to be alone.

He watches her turn her head to the side. The sky is just starting to lighten. The dawn of another day. “I could almost believe I imagined it," she muses, swallowing. "Fuck." 

Her eyes begin to fill with tears and, as always, it breaks him a little. He takes her mug from her hand and places it on the bedside table beside the other. “C’mere.”

She does, moving closer, turning to look at him again. He cups her cheek and tilts her head up. The kiss is soft, comforting, no tongue but long, promising. He breaks it and looks at her. She shakes her head slightly. “What the fuck are we doing, Quinn?”

“I don’t fuckin’ know, Carrie.” If nothing else, he's clear he doesn’t want to have that conversation. Not now. So he kisses her again, harder and hotter, then leans her back into the pillows, trailing his mouth down her throat as a hand slides to her breast.

She drags his head up and says, “turn over.” He obliges, losing the boxers as he settles back on the mattress. A light seems to switch for Carrie. She gives into this instead of the grief and he realizes that was his objective. They don’t have much time, and he could almost cry with relief when she kisses him, tongue inside his mouth, before she steadies herself and lowers onto him. She moans, head falling back, as he fills her, stretches her.

She leans down to kiss him, hot and wet, before she straightens and begins to slowly ride him. She builds a rhythm as his fingers find her clit and stroke lightly at first before he quickens the pace to match her. Her orgasm comes suddenly through her, and she lets out a sharp cry before collapsing on him. He gives her a moment, reveling in the contractions seizing his cock before he pivots them both so that he looms over her, dominant once again. “I should have expected that,” she says, breathless, smiling up at him.

“Shut up, Carrie,” he grinds out, already on the edge himself. He slides a hand under her back, tilting up her hips as he drives into her. Carrie gasps with the force and the depth. He’s gone in seconds, losing himself inside her. His free hand grabs her hair, forcing her neck to arch as he lets his head fall against her shoulder.

He gives them both a minute to recover, reluctantly bearing their schedule in mind. “Well, I know I’m psyched as fuck to see Saul. How ‘bout you?”

Her lips quirk up at the corners, clearly relieved that he’s keeping it light. “Please don’t talk about Saul right now.”

He takes her point. “Mind if I take a shower?”

“Be my guest. Towels are in the hall cabinet, I think.”

“You think?”

“Like your place is any better.”

She’s got him there, he concedes. Quinn thinks about his instant coffee, the sleeping bag on his narrow bed. He raises his hand in defeat. “Hey,” she adds. “If you use all the hot water, I will end you.”

There’s a tense silence while she realizes what she just said. Why he’s here. Where they’re going. Quinn lets her off the hook, just says, “ _noted_ ,” and exits for the bathroom.

-

They’re late anyway, out the door with only twenty minutes to spare. Quinn drives. Carrie insists on stopping for more coffee, and he obliges, pulling into a Starbucks drive-through. He orders food, too, oatmeal for Carrie without even consulting her about anything except toppings.

“Dried fruit,” she says, making a face. “You know, I can feed myself.”

”You sure about that?” he challenges her. His eyes flicker pointedly over her small frame.

Carrie’s mouth opens and closes. “Are we gonna talk about what we’re doing here?” she asks, changing the subject, because if they’re going to argue, she’s going to make it count.

“We burned a lot of calories,” he says, still skirting the issue, not sure how deep she wants to go into this but intent on avoiding anything important given the previous twenty-four hours of epic mindfuck.

“Are we going to talk about what you _said_?”

“You’d need to be more specific,” he lies, glancing briefly in her direction before he refocuses on the road. He remembers the look on her face when he said it, the cruel edge to his tone. He also remembers how fucking serious he was, and he regrets nothing.

“I wanted you last night, Quinn.” Her voice comes out soft and searching, she looks at him, vulnerable as an open wound. “Not — I’m not pining for anybody. I wasn’t even thinking about… Jesus, Quinn.”

She runs a hand through her hair, exasperated, looking almost like she is going to cry. He recognizes the signs, not that she’s subtle about it; the quivering chin, the eyes filled with tears. He reaches half-heartedly toward her, but she brushes his hand away.

“Carrie…”

“I get it, Quinn. Thanks for the pity fucks.”

“Fuck you, Carrie,” he says, but his voice lacks malice.

“Funny, that doesn’t sound like an apology.”

“Pretty sure you got what you wanted.”

“Fuck you, Quinn.”

They lapse into silence. Carrie seems satisfied having gotten the last word, and Quinn is just glad for a little bit of relative peace and quiet as they approach Langley.

A Marine is stationed at the edge of the property. Quinn pulls up alongside and opens his window, presenting their identification. The soldier waves them through.

Quinn sucks in a breath as the destruction comes into view. An entire building reduced to rubble; there are still rescue workers digging through the debris. Carrie gropes for his hand and he obliges, attempting to be reassuring. He parks as far away from the wreckage as he conceivably can, and shuts off the car. “You okay?”

“I didn’t know. Quinn, I — this is my fault. He did this.”

“I know,” he says. “He did.”

“I loved him. How could I have loved him?”

He flashes back to the cabin, Brody at the other end of his scope. “We all fucked up, Carrie,” he says soberly, reflecting once again on the shot not fired.

She’s openly crying now, for her colleagues, or for Brody, or for herself — he can’t be sure. She’s grasping his hand so tightly, anchoring herself to him, and he lets her.

-

Inside, Langley is like a ghost town. Their footsteps echo in the hallways.

Saul is waiting in his office, a room untouched by the bomb but overlooking the carnage outside. He stands up as they enter, gruffly snaps, “you’re late.”

“Fire us,” Carrie says, clearly exhausted and unwilling to meet Saul’s ire.

Quinn intercedes, lies, says, “I was late picking her up.”

Carrie’s eyes flash up to him, but Saul doesn’t notice, doesn’t seem interested in any case.

“Two hundred and nineteen people,” he says gravely. “That’s the casualty count.”

“Brody?” Carrie asks, can’t help herself apparently.

“Dead. And good fuckin’ riddance,” Saul adds, turning on Carrie with a scrutinizing gaze.

But she just nods, somber.

“There’s a lot of work to do,” Saul says, satisfied. “Peter… I am hoping that you will consider remaining on our team for the time being.”

He thinks about the work he’s done, the work he almost did. For the time being, he thinks, wonders how it was phrased when Saul approached Dar Adal. He glances down, catches Carrie looking at him. “Yeah,” Quinn answers. “Of course.”

He can almost swear Carrie smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit where it's due, as always, to Leblanc1. She literally wrote like a fifth of this and helped me get through the rest. <3


	6. Chapter 6

In the weeks that follow the attack on Langley, they get to work. 

It isn’t long before they ascertain that the conspiracy goes well beyond Abu Nazir — Saul doesn’t seem particularly surprised when they track it to Majid Javadi, his former comrade. He almost smiles as he recounts their history. 

He formulates a plan — _two_ plans, actually. The first plan will appease the Senate, and he puts it into motion immediately, backed by Dar Adal. The second, more delicate, might actually save the CIA. Later, when he discovers 45 million dollars embezzled under a dead soccer player’s name, he considers that it might change the world. 

He sends Quinn to Venezuela, and in his absence Saul is able to get Carrie alone. 

- 

“We can get Javadi,” Saul says fervently, leaning toward her. Carrie can’t remember the last time she saw him so invested in anything, so she just raises her eyebrows and motions for him to continue. 

But the plan hinges on her — _her_. Going off her meds, botching the Senate hearings, that’s just the _start._ “You want to have me _committed?”_ she says, incredulous at his audacity. “What the fuck, Saul.” 

In the end she concedes, because 219 people died on her watch and she has not begun to atone for that. She can, now. 

“Keep this between us for now,” he adds. 

“What about Quinn?” she asks. Up until recently it’d been the three of them at work together, all huddled in a room that should be filled with people. 

“Just us.”

-

Off her meds, she misses Quinn.

 _On_ her meds, she had missed him, but she’d been able to crowd out those thoughts with booze and work. Now, her mind is wide open. She has room for _all_ of it. Even Brody, though she’s lost track of her feelings for him. She wonders if it’s transference. 

She doesn’t think it can be. Quinn knows her too well, too intimately, better than Brody ever did. And Quinn would _know_ , read it in her face somehow, and she skips back to their first night together. He’d never stand for it. 

Not that she knows what _it_ is. She has no clue what they’re doing, what they are. Colleagues? Friends? Is there a word for coworkers who fuck in secret and never, ever talk about it?

He hadn’t even told her he was going on a mission; she’d gotten that information from Saul two days after Quinn had left. It burns her, infuriates her, that she’d had to _ask._

-

The Senate hearings start and she comes off a little crazy.

Then she wakes up to a story in the news about the CIA agent who’d had an affair with the terrorist who’d blown up her workplace. 

 _Then_ Saul throws her under the bus live on television, tells the whole world she’s bipolar, fucking lies about her relationship with Brody, at least about his knowledge of it, and all Carrie can think is, _this wasn’t part of the deal_. The world might not know her name, but she feels slandered anyway. 

She storms the _Washington Post_ offices, all fury and manic energy. She knows it’s a sham, she knows what’s coming, but still she wants to tell, wants to share as much information as she can before they shut her up. 

“They knew, they _fucking_ knew,” Carrie seethes to the reporter, and that’s when the police appear, right on time and way too soon.

She’s admitted to the hospital, chained to a gurney and the doctor towers over her, asks her about her meds.

“I have a system,” she explains, doing her best to calm her voice, to sound sane. She knows that this is it, this is the plan, but she wants out all the same. Her eyes flit around the room, searching for an escape route she doesn’t expect to find.

-

Quinn arrives, the “Visitor” sticker on his chest mocking her. 

“I came as soon as I heard,” he says, crossing to sit beside her on the bed. “Are you okay?” 

She looks at him like he’s the crazy one. “No, I’m not fucking okay, I’m in a goddamn psych ward.” She runs her hand through her hair, agitated. “Are you here to get me out?” 

“I can’t.” 

It’s not like she didn’t know the answer to the question before she even asked it; she’s simultaneously locked up here against her will and of her own volition. She’s disappointed anyway. Quinn doesn’t know this is part of an operation, he doesn’t know this is on purpose — she wanted him to _try_ to help her. 

Instead he just looks at her, concern clouding his earnest blue eyes. “You know you can’t do this shit, Carrie,” he says gently.   

She huffs. “Yeah, well, Saul  _fucked_ me over and I wanted to set the story straight. What’s the big secret? That the Director of the CIA is a fucking liar?” 

Quinn almost smiles at that. “C’mon, Carrie.” 

“And where the fuck were _you?_ ” she asks, a little hysterical. “I’m fucking — I thought we were _friends_ , Quinn.”

He has the grace to look chagrined. “I didn’t think—”

“Yeah, no shit you didn’t think,” she interrupts. “Christ.”

“Listen, Carrie—” 

“Just go. Please. I want you to leave.” He doesn’t move except to reach for her hand. Carrie brings both of her palms up, avoiding him. “Get the fuck out,” she demands, and when he doesn’t comply, she screams it. 

An orderly comes in to investigate. “It’s fine,” she says. “He’s leaving.” 

Unable to argue, he does.

-

Everybody says, “take your meds, Carrie. If you take your meds, you can go home.” 

She refuses over and over again, gets physical at her hearing. Quinn’s there, again, of course. When she _doesn’t_ want him, there he is. 

They inject her with Thorazine, and that’s it — for a while.

-

But the plan works. 

It _works_. 

The lawyer, Franklin, shows up, she rebuffs him. 

He gets her out anyway. 

Carrie goes home and takes her lithium.

-

Quinn comes over the night she gets back. He doesn’t call first, just arrives at her place with food — Italian again, and when she opens the door he is waiting, leaning against the door frame. Carrie’s pulse speeds up a little at the sight of him.   

She steps back to let him in, is primed to argue. But she’s not stable yet, not entirely, and when he puts down the food she practically jumps him in the kitchen. Quinn is surprised, obviously, but Carrie doesn’t give a shit. She wants him immediately and badly, wraps one arm around his neck to pull him close as she kisses him, hard.

“Jesus, Carrie,” he mutters when she drags her lips down his jaw, his neck. He’s no match for her like this, she knows, no man has ever kept up. 

She starts unbuttoning his shirt, exposing his chest, pressing open-mouthed kisses to his skin. But he sweeps her up before she can react, hands under her arms, and places her on the counter so she’s at eye-level. He looks carefully at her for what feels like eternity. “Carrie,” he says. 

“I’m back on my meds,” she informs him, feeling a little breathless, reaching for his face. He catches her wrists. 

“You’re still pissed at me,” he reminds her for some reason. 

She raises her eyebrows. “Understatement.” 

Quinn steps closer, frees her wrists. He kisses her then, and Carrie pulls him in against her, trapping him as she wraps her legs around his waist. His hand slides up her spine, under her shirt. He finds the clasp of her bra and nimbly slips it open. Carrie pulls away, breathing hard, and leans back so that Quinn can drag her shirt over her head. 

She’d be satisfied with a quick fuck on the counter, but Quinn evidently has other plans. He hoists her up, his palm at the small of her back to keep her steady, her body still twined around him as he proceeds toward her bedroom. Carrie lets him, slides her hand into his hair and pulls. It’s gotten longer since he’s been away — only marginally, but she thinks she can tell, and her ire returns. She pulls a little harder, but he just tips his head back to press a kiss to her jaw. 

“Hey,” he says gently, but Carrie just shakes her head, disengaging when he sets her at the edge of her bed. 

She’s so antsy, so desperate for him, weeks of unexpected pent-up frustration coming to a head. She can’t remember ever being like this before; they’re not exclusive, they’re not _anything_ , but even off her meds she hasn’t wanted anybody else. It’s fucking with her head. 

Quinn undresses quickly, methodically, letting his clothes fall to the floor in a heap. As he moves toward her, Carrie realizes she’s still got her pants on, and her hands fumble immediately for the button at her waist. But Quinn is there first, kneeling in front of her to slide them off. 

He parts her legs, pressing a kiss to the inside of her thigh. “Don’t you fucking dare, Quinn,” Carrie says, pushing up to her elbows. He raises his hands in compliance, rising to his feet. 

“Then what?” he says, his voice low. 

Her breath is coming a little quicker. She’s out of patience. “Fuck me, Quinn,” she says, hating the breathless sound of her voice, looking him right in the eye. "Please." 

Carrie slides back on the bed to make room for him, to drive the point home. He follows, kneels between her legs, lifts one of her knees. And then he fucking _waits_ , at the ready, rock hard and _right there_. She swears her heart is going to burst out of her chest until finally, fucking _finally_ he drives into her with one solid thrust. She cries out, so overwhelmed by the feel of him. 

Quinn pauses, exhales. Carrie wraps her free leg around him, trying to bring him closer, and he slides his hand over her cheek tenderly, leans down to kiss her. He pulls back, finding his balance, and begins to fuck her hard, fast, his hips driving into her at a brutal pace. 

Carrie can barely keep up. Her senses are too full of him, she’s utterly undone. Her hand slips to her center — Quinn gets in the way though, taking control of her pleasure, as everything else. He swipes his thumb over her clit and that’s all it takes for Carrie. She feels the blood pulsing through her body, is clenching furiously around his cock, is making a mantra of his name. 

He stills, waiting her out, and then he kisses her lightly. 

“Like that?” he manages, breathless himself. 

Carrie nods and he resumes, moving furiously inside of her. Carrie’s cries span octaves, and he gets her off one more time before he comes himself, groaning her name as his warmth spreads inside of her. 

Quinn relaxes on top of her. Carrie briefly enjoys his weight on her, the feeling of him inside her. But he smoothly rolls them both over so that she’s collapsed on top of him. “Hi,” Quinn says. 

She rests her head on his chest, content for now. “Hi,” she echoes, and he slides his hand into her hair gently. 

After a moment, he says, “we need to talk.” 

“Talk.”

Quinn’s palms slide down her body, come to rest on her hips. She looks up at him, her chin propped on her arm.  
  
“Were you going to tell me you’re pregnant?”


	7. Chapter 7

They’d been having such a nice moment, too.

He hadn’t planned this. He’d come over to check on her, Italian takeout in hand because it had a precedent as comfort food. He’d been expecting her to rage at him, to continue the frustrated tirade she’d begun at the hospital.

But he’s up on her now, had gotten into her medical records in an effort to understand _why_. She’d been fine before he left, sane enough for her, anyway. The clusterfuck he’d come home to had been surprising at best.

Carrie is silent for a terrifying thirty seconds, her eyes narrow and suspicious. Without a word, she climbs off him, off the bed, and stalks toward the bathroom to clean up. He watches the door slam, and tenses at the _bang_. He can hear the water running. Quinn gets up too and finds his boxers.

And he waits.

She storms back into the room a minute later, red-faced and furious, draped in a bathrobe. She retrieves something from the pocket and flings it — multiple _its_ , actually — at him. Quinn snags one from the air and examines it. A pregnancy test. Several more scatter on the floor around him.

“Carrie,” he breathes.

“When exactly was I supposed to tell you, Quinn? You were on a mission. Completely fucking unreachable. A mission you _didn’t even tell me about_ , so you don’t get to stand there all self-righteous because I didn’t tell you about a baby that for all you know isn’t even yours.”

“It was classified.” His only defense.

“Don’t give me that shit.”

“I didn’t think it mattered to you.”

Another pregnancy test goes rocketing toward his head, but he shifts in time and it bounces off the wall behind him. “Jesus, Carrie, how many tests did you take?”

“A fucking lot. How the fuck did _you_ find out?”

“I saw your records,” he admits, a little rueful — but they’re fucking _spies_ and privacy is a construct of idealists. “At the hospital.”

“Jesus Christ, Quinn.”

“I was worried.”

“And how about now?” she asks venomously, her eyes flashing with rage.

Quinn takes a step toward her, then another, holding his breath as he approaches her — careful. When he closes the distance, he brings his hand gently to cup her cheek. “I’m sorry,” he says.

She raises her eyebrows. “For leaving without telling you,” he clarifies, kissing her forehead. “It was fucked up.”

“No shit,” she says, but much of the anger has left her voice, resignation in its place. “I was _going_ to tell you.”

“How far along are you?”

Carrie bites her lip, looking away from him. “That’s the thing.”

Quinn waits.

“I haven’t been to the doctor yet, but I _think_ I’m about eight weeks.”

He closes his eyes and traces the time backward — two months ago was the attack on Langley, the first time he came to her. Before that… “You don’t fucking know, do you?” It comes out more harshly than he intends; Carrie flinches.

“No.”

“Jesus Christ, Carrie.”

“You don’t get to fucking turn this around on me, Quinn. You know me,” she retorts.

“I know,” he sighs, then blinks when he realizes what he’s acknowledging.

“I’m not keeping it,” she drops bluntly.

“What? Just like that?” He knows, truly, that his surprise is unwarranted, but it twists in his stomach nonetheless.

“Yes, just like _that!_  I just got out of a fucking mental institution, on what planet am I qualified to be a mother?”

“Carrie, slow down. Think this through.”

“Think what through? Which part? That I’m crazy? That my job could fucking kill me? Or — or how about this? I don’t even know if the father of this kid is even alive!”

“Carrie—”

“No, seriously! I’m all ears. I would love to know how _contemplation_ is going to solve anything. Any of _this_.” Her voice cracks and she gestures, frustrated, to the tests scattered on the floor around them.

“Would it matter?” He touches her chin, tilting her face toward his. He looks at her for a long time, searching.

“What?”

“Who the father is?”

Carrie’s eyes fill with tears and she tries to look away, unsuccessfully, Quinn holding her in place. “I don’t know,” she admits. “How pathetic is that?”

She retreats, several steps back and out of his reach. “I mean, it’s usually better when the father is _alive_ , right?” She smiles bitterly. “Even better when the father isn’t a fucking terrorist… although I’m not sure an assassin is much of an improvement.”

He watches helplessly as she sinks down on the edge of her bed, her head in her hands. Wordlessly, he sits beside her and slides his arm around her trembling shoulders. She shrugs him off and shifts away, putting three inches and a wide chasm between them.

Quinn sighs, despairing of reaching her.

“Did you ever want to be a mother?” he asks finally, softly, seeking a different path.

“I dunno, Quinn, did you ever want to be a _father?_ Because last I heard you weren’t winning any awards for father of the year.” Her words are nasty, cruel, and utterly true.

He is stunned, utterly, and rendered speechless. The silence festers between them.

Carrie, in a rare instance of self-awareness, seems to recognize the impact of her words. She twists toward him, visibly softening, and she reaches for his hand. “Maybe,” she says, and this time when he tries to pull her close she lets him. “Maybe it would matter. I can’t have Brody’s kid, that’s all I know.”

“Okay,” Quinn murmurs. That’s something.

It’s her choice, he knows that, but something about the stutter of his heart when he’d seen the note in her file had made him realize just how badly he longed for a second chance.

“I’m not sure if I can do this at all,” she reminds him. “I mean, Christ, Quinn. I’m a fucking wreck. And _you—"_

“Carrie, we’ll figure it out.”

“Where’s daddy?” she continues, though, sarcastic, scaling her voice up an octave. Then, normal, “I dunno, sweetie, he’s on a secret mission and he’ll _maybe_ be back eventually.”

“So I stop taking missions,” he says. It’s not like he hasn’t been considering it anyway — the boy he killed in Caracas is still heavy on his mind.

Carrie sighs. “I can’t talk about this right now, Quinn, I wasn’t — I wasn’t _ready_ to talk about this. I just got out of a fucking mental hospital, in case you’ve forgotten.”

She stands up, arms crossed, and looks at him. “I think I want to be alone tonight.”

“You sure?” Quinn asks. “We can just…”

Carrie raises her eyebrows and shakes her head. “I need to think. I can’t _think_ when you’re here.”

“All right.” He rises and begins gathering his clothes, dressing while Carrie picks up the pregnancy tests. She brings them back to the bathroom; he can hear a drawer opening and closing, and he almost smiles at this insane woman who has begun to worm her way into his heart.

“We’ll talk,” she tells him, and walks him to the door. Quinn kisses her, just once, before he leaves.

-

He looks at his phone before he drives away, partly because he’s technically perpetually on-call, but mostly because he wants to see how long Carrie stands at the window, if she’s waiting to watch him drive away. He finds several missed messages from Saul, which is surprising. Their most recent encounters have not been particularly friendly.

But he is the acting director of the CIA, and that trumps Peter’s feelings about the man, so he calls back.

Saul answers, abrupt. “Goddamnit, Peter, where have you been?”

Quinn’s eyes drift toward Carrie’s door. He says, “personal business,” an excuse that is rare enough coming from him that Saul doesn’t dare question it. Saul rattles off his own address and asks Peter to come.

With one last look at Carrie’s window — she’s gone, now, the lights are off — Quinn starts the car and makes his way toward Saul’s house.

-

Saul tells him a fantastical story, says, “I’m bringing you into our operation.”

Quinn is staggered by the intensity of the play, the misery Carrie put herself through at — he’s certain — her mentor’s behest. “Fuck me.”

Saul asks him to surveil Carrie, keep an eye on her, but keep his distance. He is certain he can do two of those things, but he agrees without argument and assumes they’ll discuss it — along with everything else — later. He wonders if Saul knows about the pregnancy. He’s reasonably certain that Saul doesn’t know about _them._

“Why me?” he asks, curious.

The older man shrugs. “She trusts you.” He scribbles down a number on a piece of paper. “Her burner phone. Stay out of sight.”

-

He drives back to Carrie’s, parking about a block away from her building. With his scope to his eye, he can make out her condo, windows, door. There’s nothing to see, really. Nothing suspicious. He dials her burner phone.

Carrie picks up on the third ring. “Yeah?”

“It’s Quinn. Carrie, what the fuck?”

She’s silent for a long moment. “I wanted to bring you in earlier. I told Saul, but.... I don’t know. He wouldn’t.”

“He told me to keep my distance.”

“Maybe… maybe that’s for the best right now, Quinn.”

He swallows. “You sure?”

“For the operation,” she emphasizes. Quinn’s head drops back against the seat. He is suddenly very tired.

“I’ll talk to you soon,” he promises, and hangs up.


	8. Chapter 8

It’s late at night and Carrie is long asleep when Quinn senses that the operation has begun.  
  
-

There are two surveillance teams that Peter knows about for sure. The dark van, a couple blocks away, is as conspicuous as he could hope for. Clumsy. With Javadi’s money, he’d expect a little better than half-brained Jersey goons. There’s an SUV parked on an adjacent street, too, one man seated alone in the driver’s seat.

So there are at least three guys, _maybe_ four. He’s fairly sure he can take them all out if he needs to; he passes the time thinking about it, itching for action.

When the guy in the SUV exits the car and surreptitiously begins casing Carrie’s apartment, Quinn has to white-knuckle the steering wheel to stop himself going after him.

He takes a moment. He’s practiced at anger management, has preternatural control buried in his psyche from years of training. But it’s personal now. Dangerous, the risks he would take for her, and he can’t even pinpoint why. Does he want this kid? Does he want her? _Fuck it_ , he thinks, sick of the inner reflection.

 _This is the plan_ , he reminds himself. _Keep your fucking distance._

Meanwhile, this asshole is peeping through Carrie’s windows, watching her sleep. He thinks about snapping his spine, how fucking easy it would be.

 _And she’s right_ , he muses. On this, she’s right. How could she be a mother? She’s fallen for a psychopath, submitted herself body and mind to the CIA, to this fucking mission. This is her life. The life he’s fairly sure she wants.

He taps out a message to Saul, burner phone to burner phone, detailing his observations. It’s two in the morning but Saul replies immediately, “STAY BACK.” All caps like he doesn’t know what he’s fucking doing.

Quinn doesn’t reply, but he does fantasize about breaking Saul’s face.

Because this plan, he knows, is all Saul Berenson. It’s classic, it’s complicated, and the personal risk — for Saul, anyway — is nonexistent. For Carrie, it’s a nightmare.

His head tips back against the seat; he recalls this year with Carrie, their shorthand and battles and mutual recognition he can’t begin to comprehend. The trust.

Even aware of the world of shit that will come with it, he realizes, he wants it. He wants it all.

-

The sun rises and the surveillance teams fade back. Quinn eats a Quest bar and stays put.

-

He sits up straight when he observes Jessica Brody, of all fucking people, at Carrie’s doorstep. Carrie lets her in, with a furtive look outside, and then closes the door.

Minutes pass by.

Jessica exits, visibly relieved.

Ninety seconds later, activity on Carrie’s burner phone. She’s arguing with Agent Hall.

A minute after _that_ , she’s waking up Max. Quinn gets out of the car.

-

He’s behind a pillar when she comes striding into the garage, dressed for yoga, a mat slung over her shoulder. She startles when she sees him. “Jesus Christ, Quinn! What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same question.”

“You’re supposed to be keeping your distance,” she dodges petulantly.

Quinn shrugs. “Someone has to protect you from yourself.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she sighs, impatient. “Dana Brody is missing.”

“And you’re gonna, what, look for her? Carrie, you cannot blow your cover. They will kill you.”

She shakes her head. “I’ve done this before. It’s a good play, Quinn.”

“Carrie…” But she’s resolute, determined. He could physically stop her, of course, but that won’t solve the problem. She’s being watched. She can’t just drop off their radar entirely — as appealing as that would be. “I don’t like this,” he says finally.

Carrie takes a step toward him, lets him wrap her in his arms. She’s so small against him. “Noted,” she says, tipping her head back to look at him.

He sighs, determined to get through to her, to find a way in. “Carrie, stop. Think. This is whole fuckin’ thing is crazy. It doesn’t—”

“What?” she challenges. He sighs.

“It doesn’t need to be this dangerous.”

She’s determined, though, and clearly not impressed with the way he’s second-guessing her, encroaching on her plan. Their look holds for several long seconds, and she softens. “I’ll be careful.”

Defeated, he retreats. “I’ll be watching you.”

Carrie’s mouth twists a little. “I know.”

-

Once she enters the yoga studio, he loses track of her, focuses on the surveillance. The SUV is parked almost immediately across the street, more obvious than Peter would expect — the van is further down the road, pointed toward them. It’s amateurish, but he’s fairly sure that Carrie got away clean.

At the end of the hour, though, Carrie is not among the group spilling out of the studio. Quinn pulls forward to block Javadi’s guy from getting out of the car to investigate, feigning ineptitude. He only buys Carrie a few extra seconds, the guy slides out through the passenger seat and approaches the building, but as soon as he walks in, Carrie walks out.

Peter shoots her an exasperated look before making his way back to the car.

-

He texts Saul again.

Saul’s on his duck hunt, clearly preoccupied by more important matters, and doesn’t respond.

-

The surveillance vanishes somewhere in the early evening, but Quinn remains vigilant.

Saul calls Carrie, berates her for ruining everything — Peter picks it all up on the burner phone, clenches and unclenches his hand as he listens. Carrie is adamant she wasn’t made; Saul disagrees.

Quinn gives her a few minutes before he calls the burner phone himself.

“Hello?” she says, breathless, after several rings.

“It’s Quinn.”

“I know.”

She sounds exhausted. He knows the feeling. She asks, in a small voice, whether the surveillance is back; he has to admit it isn’t. “You okay?”

“Not really,” she admits, then asks, “where are you?”

“Keeping my distance,” he says, a little more shortly than he intends. “Not too far.”

“Have you slept?” Carrie asks, a little accusing, verging almost on concerned.

“I’m fine.”

“According to Saul, you’re wasting your time,” she sighs. “You might as well go home.”

 _Go home_ , he thinks. Like he can leave her alone here, vulnerable. In her condition, he adds, and his stomach flips. He isn’t going anywhere. He wishes they knew for sure.

“Not yet.”

“I can’t see you,” Carrie says.

“What?”

“I’m looking out the window. I can’t see you.”

“That’s the point.”

The moment suspends into silence, all at once connected and unconnected.

Finally, he says, “at least you can get some rest now, right?”

She answers with a breathy, cynical laugh. “Right, I just…” she trails off, a little wistful. “Night, Quinn.”

-

Out of sight, Quinn can only monitor the area via the camera he’d set up, the live feed of _nothing_ broadcasting to an iPad. He’s cautious of getting too close to her building, on the supremely off chance Javadi’s team has gotten savvy. He sits in the car, just watching.

It pays off, eventually. He dials Saul’s number, the scope at his eye. “The surveillance is back on,” he says. Quinn immediately regrets calling in when Saul orders him to stay back, stay back, stay back — he should have fucking known better.

 _Fuck it_ , he decides, disconnecting the phone.

Gun in hand, he jogs toward Carrie’s building, letting himself into her apartment with her spare key. He clears the place quickly and carefully, making his way toward her bedroom.

She’s gone.

Shards of glass on the floor, Carrie’s clothes. Her shirt is ripped. Quinn inhales sharply, purposely avoiding the implications, because if he considers what happened here, he might actually kill Saul Berenson. Her phone is shattered, the SIM is missing.

“I’m inside,” he says, when he calls Saul back. “She’s gone. We lost her.”

He’s pretty sure he can hear Saul smiling when he says, “but we know who’s got her. We’re back in business.”

Peter can’t listen to any more of Saul’s masturbatory bullshit, so he hangs up the phone and sits on Carrie’s bed, his head in his hands, until his heartbeat returns to normal.

-

He cleans up as much as he can, sweeping the glass into a dustpan and discarding her destroyed phone and shirt — the rest of the clothes on the ground, too, as an afterthought, to eliminate the reminders.

Saul calls back, tries to give him more orders. Quinn says, “you got eyes on Carrie?”

He hangs up the phone when Saul admits they don’t, and calls Virgil instead.

Virgil is half-asleep when he picks up the phone, but nevertheless he arrives at Carrie’s place within fifteen minutes, toolbox in hand. The first words out of his mouth are, “Carrie okay?”

“Who the fuck knows,” Quinn says, a little short. “You good here?”

“New locks, new glass,” Virgil nods. “I’ll take a walk around, secure the place.”

Quinn knows that he’ll fortify it all himself later, but for the moment he’s ready to leave it in Virgil’s hands. “Good,” he says.

Before he leaves, Virgil tosses him a ring of keys. “You’ll need these.”

-

He hightails it back to Langley. Tracks every public — and a few (unauthorized, private) — cameras in the area. He zeroes in on the license plate. Eyes glued to the screens, for hours, he follows the car from Carrie’s house along the highway, to the restaurant, to the transfer of cars, to… nothing, there’s nothing.

Carrie’s gone.

Saul texts him with an address to the safe house.  
-

Fara is alone at the safe house when Quinn arrives. Saul is nowhere to be seen — _fucking unreal_ , he thinks. Quinn calls, Saul doesn’t answer; it’s turning into a goddamn farce.

“Jesus Christ,” Quinn mutters. Fara looks up at him, a little nervous at his pacing, his potent frustration. He sighs. “We have nothing, do we?”

She shakes her head. “Max is on his way.”

“Great.”

As if on cue, Max strolls in, sleepily apologetic.

“Where the fuck is Saul,” Quinn mutters to nobody in particular, picking up his phone to call again and putting it on speaker. This time, it doesn’t go to voicemail. Amazing. Quinn lets out a breath.

Saul says, “anything new?”

They explain the tracking, the drone, the truck stop where they lost her. Quinn sinks down into his chair. “So basically she could be anywhere.”

“We knew this could happen,” Saul reminds him. “Carrie will be fine.”

Quinn grits his teeth. “So what’s the plan?”

“We wait,” Saul says.

“We wait,” Quinn echoes, disbelieving. “That’s the fuckin’ plan?”

“Any other action could jeopardize Carrie.”

Quinn finally flares, his battle-tested control destroyed by lack of sleep and the sheer epic bullshit of this operation. “Or will it just jeopardize _your_ assfuck of a plan and make her dead?”

“I am going to pretend I didn’t hear that, Peter,” Saul answers brusquely.

“Do you even give a fuck, Saul? Tell me. Because it’s hard to tell. Really.”

“You are out of line, Quinn.”

Fara intervenes, tries to find that elusive in-between that will satisfy everybody. “Why don’t we go to the truck stop,” she says, a little frantically. “We can dust for prints, see if we can track them that way.”

Saul vetoes it. Quinn picks up the phone and hurls it at the wall.

-

Shortly after sunrise, she calls.

Saul, not him.

“It worked,” he says triumphantly, after he disconnects. Quinn blinks at him. “Carrie’s fine. Heading home to get some sleep.” Saul narrows his eyes at Quinn. “Which you should also do.”

The success of the plan seems to have obliterated Saul’s fury toward him. With Carrie safe, he affords the director the same courtesy, letting his anger settle.

Quinn shakes his head. “I’m fine, I’m gonna—”

Saul shakes his head, anticipating the argument. “I need to put together some files for Carrie to bring to the meet with Javadi. You’re going to back her up. There’s a bedroom down the hall. Go sleep in it.”

Suddenly exhausted, Quinn nods. He hasn’t slept since he last saw her.

Since before that.

He makes his way to the bedroom, slams the door behind him and kicks off his shoes before falling onto the bed. Before he crashes, he digs his phone out of his pocket and dials her burner.

“Hello?” Carrie sounds tired, but otherwise fine.

“It’s Quinn.”

“Hi,” she says, voice softening a little. “Virgil… he told me. You called.”

“Yeah. How are you feeling, Carrie?”

“I’m…” she seems to be searching. “I know, it’s fucked up.”

He lets out a short laugh at the terrible understatement of it. “Definitely. Carrie, I don’t like this. Any of it.”

“I’m fine. It’s… it’s done. I’m gonna sleep, Quinn.”

He exhales. “Me too. I’ll see you soon.”

“Soon,” she says, and hangs up.

Quinn closes his eyes, finally giving himself permission to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, a million billion thank yous to Leblanc1. This chapter was HARD. I owe her a glass of wine.


	9. Chapter 9

Her heart speeds up a little when she arrives home to find a scruffy black van idling across the street from her building. Baltimore plates, rust on the fender — she scans the vehicle and considers her options. 

Just as she is about to take off in the opposite direction, the driver’s side window rolls down and Virgil pops his head out. 

“Jesus Christ, Virgil,” she exclaims, relieved. 

“I can’t say I didn’t know you were crazy,” he laments as he climbs out of the car, “but even for you, this is nuts.”

“What are you doing here?” she asks, wondering just how the hell many people are in the loop at this point. Not that she doesn’t trust Virgil, obviously — he’s always had her back. 

“Peter Quinn called me. Three in the goddamn morning he has me out here fixing your windows, changing your locks.” He produces a shining new set of keys and presses it into her palm. Carrie’s fingers curl around the ring. “Figured I’d wait around, make sure you could get in.” 

Just like that, Carrie feels her eyes well up with tears, overwhelmed suddenly by Virgil’s kindness, by his efforts to look out for her. It’s never been a two-way street with him, either. “God,” she chokes out, swiping at her cheeks, completely unable to comprehend her reaction. 

Virgil peers down at her, scrutinizing. “Uh, Carrie?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Maybe none of my business, but…” he trails off, tucking his hands into his pockets. 

Carrie raises her eyebrows impatiently, prompting him to continue.

“All right, I’ve gotta ask. Why do you have, like, fifty pregnancy tests in your bathroom?” 

She takes a step back, looking for a little bit of distance. “I didn’t count!” he adds quickly. “Jesus. I just opened a drawer when I was cleaning up.” 

“Fuck off, Virgil,” she says finally, gently.

Virgil puts up his hands in mock-surrender. “Just take care of yourself, okay?” 

“I’m fine.” 

“Good. All right, then.” 

Carrie sighs. “Thanks for…” she holds up the keys. “I’ve got it from here.” 

-

Once inside, she locks the door. There’s a solid, satisfying click as she turns the deadbolt. 

She strips out of the tracksuit, ready to be rid of the too-big clothes that don’t belong to her. She gathers them into her arms and drops them unceremoniously into the trash. 

Before she showers, she opens her drawer by her sink and looks at the tests, all neatly lined up and undisturbed. She resists taking another one and adding to the collection. Quinn knows. Virgil knows… something. But Quinn knows, and two nights ago in her bed, as she lay wrapped in his arms, it had become real. 

Carrie still doesn’t know what she’ll do. If it’s Brody’s, it’s easy. If it’s Quinn’s… 

Well, that should be easy too. Shouldn’t it? She’s not stable enough to be a mother, she’s got the dozens of pregnancy tests hidden in a drawer to prove it. And Quinn, _Christ_ — he’s not as obvious about it, but he’s a disaster too. What are they gonna do, coparent? Get married? Buy a fucking house in the country?

What kind of life could this kid possibly have? 

She remembers Quinn’s face, though, the look in his eyes when he’d asked her if it would matter. The sound of his voice when he’d said, soft and matter-of-fact, that he could stop taking missions. Like it could really be that simple. 

Exhaling, Carrie looks in the mirror. She doesn’t have to decide now. Hell, she’s put this kid — this _potential_ kid, she mentally corrects — through enough trauma for a lifetime. Maybe, she considers, she won’t have to decide at all. Maybe the kid will decide for itself that this deal is off. 

-

She draws the blackout curtains and climbs into bed, remembering at the last possible second that she needs to retrieve her burner phone from the kitchen. Her regular phone is in shards somewhere.

The phone rings just as she’s sliding back under the covers, and her head is on the pillow when she answers. Her lips curve at the sound of Quinn’s voice, when he tells her, quietly, that he’ll see her soon. 

“Soon,” she agrees, and she manages to snap the phone closed before she falls immediately, and deeply, into sleep.

-

Half-past one, Carrie’s alarm goes off. She silences it, but doesn’t move right away, just stares at the ceiling through the artificial darkness until the phone rings again.

She gropes for it sleepily, and sits up. “Hello?” 

“It’s me,” he says. “I’m outside.” 

“Are you early?” she asks around a yawn. 

“A little bit.” 

“Gimme a sec.” She hangs up the phone and counts to five before making her way to the door. She opens it to find him waiting.

Face to face, Quinn’s mouth opens and closes. “You’re all right,” he says quietly, but it’s more a question than a statement and Carrie just nods, stepping back to let him in. “Did they hurt you?” he asks seriously, looking her up and down. She shakes her head, opting not to share the details. 

“These are yours,” he adds, reaching into his pocket to retrieve a set of keys that match the ones Virgil gave her. 

“Virgil is thorough,” she observes, unintentionally dry, a few seconds too late for levity. She reaches out to take them, but stops, bringing her hand back. “I’ve gotta get changed. Make yourself useful.”

The look on his face is meaningful, expectant. Carrie huffs out a laugh. “Coffee,” she clarifies. 

He nods once. “You want me to go to your kitchen and push a button for you?” 

“If it’s not too much trouble.” 

“We’re going to a coffee shop.” 

“Hey, if it’s too much trouble, just say so.” 

“I’ll press the fucking button, Carrie. Go get dressed.” 

-

She watches him while he drives, enjoying the brief respite from danger and fear. They’re almost done, they’re in the home stretch. A couple more hours and she can stop. She can breathe. She can think. 

They pull up to the coffee shop and Quinn gets her outfitted with an earpiece and a listening device. “Stay where I can see you,” he instructs her as she gets out of the car. “I’ll be close.” 

“It’ll be fine,” Carrie assures him, unsure herself, but the plan’s been, if not flawless, at least successful so far. If nothing else, she knows that she’ll be safe under his watch. 

Inside Raffi’s, she orders a cup of coffee and sits at the window to wait. Saul’s got them both looped into the conversation, and she stares out at Quinn thoughtfully. 

Javadi is leaving, Javadi is driving, and suddenly she’s rushing out of the coffee shop as Quinn pulls up to get her. 

He speeds through the suburban streets, pavement blurring, as Saul entreats them repeatedly to hurry. 

Too late, they storm the house, guns at the ready. Quinn’s got Javadi frozen, straddling the bleeding form of a woman. Saul is demanding answers, but Carrie feels the bile rising in her throat and she can’t speak. 

Quinn gets Javadi roughly up against the wall. “It’s a fucking massacre,” he reports to Saul, disgusted. 

A noise from the other room startles Carrie, and she turns, weapon out, only to find a toddler seated on the floor, the only witness to this brutal scene. Immediately she puts the safety on and the gun away, then crouches to pick up the child. “There’s a baby in here, Saul.” 

She and Quinn trade an astonished, horrified look when they are ordered to leave the child behind. “Fuck,” Carrie curses, on the verge of tears as she bends to place the kid in his playpen, safely away away from the glass on the floor, from the bodies of his family.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, hovering over him. 

“Carrie, we’ve gotta go,” Quinn calls, and Carrie lets out a sharp breath before following him out the door.

-

At the safe house, Quinn cuffs Javadi. Saul is nowhere to be seen. Carrie fades out, goes to sit on the front steps, wants to pull some fresh air into her lungs. He follows a moment later, two cups of coffee in hand, and he sinks down beside her. 

She takes one. He says, “are you okay?” 

“I haven’t figured that out yet.” 

“Yeah.” Carrie twists toward him, lets her forehead drop to his shoulder — she’s utterly drained; the last two days have fucked her up. Quinn kisses her on the top of the head, and she looks up. This isn’t the time or the place, she knows, but she’s glad he’s here. 

“I missed you,” she says, letting her guard down for the first time in weeks. 

He’s just about to say something, or maybe kiss her, when footsteps behind them announce Saul’s arrival, interrupting the moment. “You ready?” he asks, stepping onto the porch, and Carrie reluctantly rises. Quinn follows, but Saul stops him. “You should go home and shower,” he says, gesturing to the blood on Quinn’s shirt, his hands. 

Quinn looks down, surprised somehow by the streaks of red, and nods reluctantly. Carrie feels inexplicably sad, doesn’t want to let him out of her sight. “Take my car,” she offers. 

He takes the keys from her, gives her the key to Javadi’s handcuffs in exchange. “I’ll be back soon,” he says. 

“Let’s do this,” Saul tells her, and she follows him into the house. 

-

She doesn’t know why she has to be here. Saul immediately abandons her in front of the screens, alone, while he brings Fara to speak with Javadi. 

And then it’s just her, a voiceless spectator of this interrogation. Of Saul’s coercion. She watches the puzzle pieces fit exactly into place, the picture coming together as Javadi learns what is expected of him and rails against it. 

Fara’s horror at the situation does nothing to appease Carrie’s own misgivings, and when she asks, frustrated, if they are sending him back to Iran, Carrie can only smile sympathetically. “That’s the plan,” she tells her.

“Nobody told me,” Fara says. 

And of course nobody told her, because this operation has been fucked up from the beginning, and god forbid anybody be able to make an informed fucking decision. “You did good work,” Carrie says. It’s all she _can_ say, but she isn’t really sure anymore. 

The front door swings open and Quinn enters, hair still wet, expression grim. “We have a problem,” he says, skipping the greeting, and he presses a piece of paper into Carrie’s hand. 

It’s a photo of him outside of the house. “Fuck,” Carrie says. Her brain is whirring. 

-

She returns, dejected, to the safe house. Her leverage has come to nothing, she says to Saul, “they’re insisting on talking to Quinn.” 

There’s no other way out, so Quinn shrugs and says, “so I talk to them.” 

Carrie looks at him, worried and skeptical. “And say what? That you murdered two people and they can’t touch you for it?”

Saul says, “do it.” 

“He _can’t_ ,” Carrie snaps, but Saul’s determined to let Quinn take the bullet for this operation. “Let me go with him at least,” she finally pleads, but that part Saul vetoes, tells her to get ready to go with Javadi to the airport.

So Quinn leaves, again, and all she can do is watch. Again.

-

When Javadi’s plane is in the air, there is nothing for Carrie to do but turn around and drive back.

 _It was worth it_ , she decides, watching as the landscape flies by. It had to have been worth it — Javadi is the highest-placed asset in the history of the Agency, and she brought him in. She went to hell and back to bring him in. 

They did good work. 

And _yet._

So many lies, so many lives lost. She can’t help but worry about the baby they left behind this morning, can’t stop thinking about the blood that was spilled. Fara’s face when she realized they were returning a monster to her homeland. The time she spent in a fucking mental institution, and what does she have to show for it? A gold star in her file? Saul’s approval? 

Unbidden, Javadi’s words echo in her mind. _“It’s classic Saul. Even I have never done anything so cruel.”_

And even though she’s seen the casualties, even despite this morning’s bloodbath, she’d almost believed him. 

As she puts miles between herself and the airfield, her mind clears, and she realizes that she still believes him, and abruptly she feels done, completely.

She presses her hand to her abdomen. 

It’s still not a decision she’s ready to make. 

She’s spent her whole life essentially alone, had mapped her future out on that single concept. This wasn’t planned; that was the one pill she took diligently, the one thing she thought she had done right. 

_And yet,_ she thinks again, marveling at the contradictions that are crowding her existence.

Carrie gets off the highway in Bethesda, still unsure of what she wants, but thoroughly cognizant of where she needs to be.

-

The lights are all still on at the crime scene, harsh brightness from every room. Quinn’s car is still here. 

She waits for him outside, hands in her pockets, and she inhales the cold air as she looks up at the dark sky. It’s all over. 

It’s only a few minutes before he exits the house, his face unreadable, impassive. Carrie takes a step forward, into the light cast down by a streetlamp. Quinn approaches. “How’d it go?” Carrie asks. He doesn’t touch her.

“Fine. They’re standing down.” 

“That’s something,” she says, and then, “what a fucking day.” 

“Yeah.” 

“At least we’re done with this.” 

“You have no idea.” Carrie’s eyes widen at his tone, harsh and bitter. “ _I’m_ fucking done.” 

“Quinn.” She honestly isn’t sure how to navigate this, he’s giving her nothing. “Quinn, it’s okay.”

“I just confessed to two homicides, Carrie.” 

“Yeah, but you didn’t do it.” 

He tilts his head down, earnestly meeting her eyes. “Does it matter?” he asks, and it’s the same tone, the same cadence, feels like an echo of their conversation in her bedroom.

“Of course it matters,” she says, sure of this at least. “Quinn, you’re not a murderer.”

“But I am a killer,” he states simply. 

“Jesus,” she says, unable to fathom a real response. She’s killed people, too — they’re soldiers, but something in his gaze tells her it’s more than that for him. 

He lets out a breath. She gives him a long moment to wallow, watching for a sign that he’s all right. It doesn’t come. 

Finally she gives in, because somebody has to, and she reaches for his hand. “Come home with me, Quinn.” 

-

He follows her in his car.

For the entire drive, she finds herself peering into the rearview mirror a little too often, reassuring herself that he’s still there. 

-

Quinn can’t settle down until he’s personally checked all of her windows and locks. He’s fastidious about it — Carrie’s prepared to trust Virgil, but she doesn’t argue, just stands against the door frame, watching.

“Do you want a drink?” she asks him once he’s finished. At his surprised look, she clarifies, “you. Do _you_ want a drink. Not that I couldn’t use one.” 

“Yeah.” 

He trails her to the kitchen, where she retrieves a dusty bottle of Jameson and pours four fingers of it into a rocks glass. “It’s been a fucked up couple of days,” she acknowledges as Quinn drains the glass. “Another?” she offers, but Quinn shakes his head, stepping closer to her. 

“Quinn, talk to me.” 

“Not now, Carrie.” 

So she kisses him instead, soft and sweet, her fingers drifting down the front of his button-down shirt. She can feel the tension strung through his body. “You should come to yoga with me,” she says, and she swears she almost gets a smile from him. 

“Right,” he mutters, scooping her perfunctorily into his arms. Caught, she presses her lips to his throat before relaxing against his chest, practically melting into him as he carries her to the bedroom. 

When he sets her down she immediately starts undoing the buttons on his shirt, undressing him slowly. Her lips trace over his skin as she exposes it, carefully. She maintains her languid pace as she gets him out of his pants, Quinn helpfully kicking his shoes to the side. 

“Lie down,” Carrie instructs him, shedding her own jacket. “On your stomach.” 

Quinn gives her a look but obliges, resting his head on a crooked elbow as he turns toward her. “Close your eyes,” she orders him, and he does, patient as ever as she climbs on the bed after him. She balances over him, straddling him at the glutes, and she presses her hands flat against the small of his back. 

“A massage? Really?” Quinn asks, sounding genuinely surprised. 

Carrie leans forward and drops a kiss between his shoulder blades. “Look who’s caught up,” she announces, and gradually, under her careful pressure, he begins to relax. She’s pleased with his soft, incoherent noises, the incremental shifts in his body as she works. She can do this for him, if nothing else, and she’s grateful that he’s letting her as his breath becomes even and slow. Carrie’s touch gets lighter and lighter until she concludes that he’s fallen asleep.

She moves carefully, not wanting to disturb him, but when she sinks down next to him, he opens his eyes. Quinn shifts to his side and reaches for her, drags her on top of him as he lies back. “I thought you were asleep.” She smiles. 

“Not even close.”

“Then I should keep going.” She reaches for his hip, slides her fingers under the elastic of his boxers. “Sorry I don’t have any oils. Next time.” 

Quinn stops her from going any further, a hand on her wrist. “Get up, Carrie.” 

She complies and he follows, takes the time now to undress her. Carrie shivers as his mouth travels along her collarbone, the valley between her breasts. He sinks to the ground in front of her, still moving on her skin as he slides her pants and underwear over her hips. She sits to let him pull them off and then she waits, barely breathing, looking down at him. 

Kneeling, he settles between her legs, drags his tongue up her skin until he can taste her, licking away the wetness that is almost coating her inner thighs. “Quinn—” she starts, anxious for him, the massage arousing in a way she hadn’t anticipated, but he just winds his left arm around her leg to hold her steady.

“Don’t you fucking dare, Carrie,” he says, mimicking her, and she huffs a frustrated laugh that is cut off by a gasp when she feels his tongue on her, and then she is lost in the feeling, eyes closed and fists clenched around nothing. 

She lies back with a groan, trying to understand why she’s so close, strangled by her need for this.

She’s sputtering nonsense already, hardly able to remember her own fucking name when he finally reaches her clit, circling it lightly as he gently, too gently, inserts two fingers inside her. He's got her pinned at the hip, she can’t move, and she realizes that he’s controlling her in this, and the intensity of his dominance courses through her body. He’s so fucking methodical she could kill him. She chokes out his name impatiently and he responds by stopping and blowing on her; she gasps, but she can almost feel the smile on his lips as he does it. When his tongue finally finds her clit, in earnest this time, with a series of circular strokes, the sensation undoes her and her orgasm tears through her body, sharp and sudden. 

Quinn stays with her, guides her through the aftershocks until she stills, breathing hard. He withdraws from her, kisses her trembling thigh. 

“Fuck,” she exhales, “Quinn.” 

She can’t come up with any other words, the intensity of her orgasm, his eyes, her hormones, this entire fucking day, even, wiping her brain clean. But he seems to get it anyway, and she manages to shift to the pillows before Quinn eases down beside her. 

“Fuck, Quinn,” she says, looking at him. 

“You said that.” Carrie laughs and goes to kiss him, balances over him on shaky limbs. He supports her, pulls her fully on top of him, and she stretches her arms out over his head as she relaxes on his chest. He curls his fingers into her hair tenderly as their lips meet, gentle and probing, as intimate as they’ve ever been. 

As intimate as _she’s_ ever been, she realizes, pulling back. “Quinn, I—” but she doesn’t finish her sentence; she just bends to kiss him again, deep and hot, until she’s breathless. 

She looks at him, the thin rings of blue surrounding his huge pupils. He exhales, pulling his hand out of her hair so that she can move. 

When she finally sinks down on him, finally feels his cock stretching her, Carrie lets out a sharp, relieved sigh. She bends forward to kiss him, bracing herself against his shoulders as she slips her tongue in his mouth.

“Fuck, Carrie,” he groans when she settles back and begins to move, slowly, on top of him. His hands rest on her hips, and she feels like he’s everywhere around her. He keeps his eyes on hers, watching her face, mesmerized, as she rides him — but his look is suddenly too intimate, too intense, and her lids flutter closed. Her pace quickens with a heightened urgency to get him off too, to get him to the other side of his maddening control. In the end it’s all too much for her. She is so fucking close to the edge and Quinn pushes her over it, slipping his thumb over her clit and pressing firmly before circling and pressing again. She cries out his name as she comes, strung through with an electric pulse that leaves her clenching fiercely around him. The blood rushing through her head, Quinn still with her, and she finds herself falling against his chest. 

“You okay?” he asks, voice tight, and Carrie nods against his skin. She’s honestly inclined to stay here forever, Quinn deep inside her and his heart under her ear, and he must sense it because he quickly flips them so he’s hovering over her, a move so familiar now it doesn’t even startle her anymore, but it nonetheless starts _her_ heart thumping crazily. She opens her eyes to find him looking at her, and Quinn kisses her briefly before bending her knee back, almost painfully, and thrusting into her, so hard and fast she can feel him at her depths and the sheer physicality leaves her gasping and desperate and on the verge of coming again. 

Oversensitive and overwhelmed, caught in a sexual freneticism she’s never felt before, Carrie arches, her head jerking to the side on the pillow, her jaw clenched. Quinn pauses, moving a hand, shaking slightly, to the side of her face. “Shhhhh,” he breathes, as though calming an agitated animal. “Carrie, look at me.” She releases a breath she didn’t know she was holding when their eyes meet. 

“Quinn, I—” Once again she finds herself unable to speak. 

“Carrie, you’re okay.” He holds her look until she’s steadied beneath him. She nods after a moment, calming under his eyes, understanding. He rears back then and thrusts into her again, deep and slow this time as though silently bringing her along and keeping her with him. As his strokes quicken, his head ducks, the sharpness of his teeth grate at her shoulder. She can tell he’s close and she tries to hang on, but the intense eroticism of his invasion of her, body and mind, is too overwhelming. She comes again, fast, an instant before Quinn finally lets go too, her name escaping his mouth in a groan.

He pulls out too quickly, Carrie would protest if she had the words, but instead she sighs as he collapses to his side of the bed, breathing hard. 

But it’s hardly an instant before Quinn gathers her close to him, leaning down to kiss her sweaty forehead. She stretches out against him, feels peaceful and safe and, for the first time in forever, like she might actually stay that way. 

Looking up at him, she thinks, _maybe._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Leblanc1 for editing, and for making my lackluster smut all-the-way-luster.


	10. Chapter 10

Carrie’s never grown accustomed to sharing her bed — sharing much of _anything_ , really, so it’s a thoroughly foreign feeling when she wakes up still pressed close to Quinn, his chest against her back, arm curled possessively around her. 

It makes it hard to slip out of bed unnoticed, and admittedly unappealing to get out of bed at all. Especially when she moves to shift away and his grip tightens just enough to deter her. “Hi,” she murmurs, still half-caught in the throes of sleep. 

He responds by bringing his palm meaningfully down her torso, demolishing any suspicion she may have had that he was still asleep. “ _Quinn_.” 

His hand circles her breast, his touch feather-light on her skin as his lips trail along her neck. Carrie moans in frustration, vision still blurry. He finally catches her nipple under his thumb and she lets out a sharp gasp as his teeth graze the edge of her shoulder. 

“Shh.” His fingers make their way to her thighs, between her legs. She’s ready for him, slick and waiting, barely awake but a little desperate all the same. 

“Quinn, _please_.” Her breath is coming quickly, she can’t move. One arm is curved up under the pillow, the other is trapped by him. She pushes her hips forward, into his hand, desperate for him to abandon his lazy pace.

“This?” His fingers brush over her clit and she shivers; he is utterly in control of her. She can’t even see his face, his breath is hot in her hair. 

“ _Quinn_ ,” she moans. She can feel his cock, hard against her backside. Quinn has to move her slightly, pulling her knee up and back, opening her body as he pushes languidly inside. He takes it slow, fucking her deep and careful, like he has nowhere to be but inside her. 

“Morning,” he murmurs, moving his hand back to her center to stimulate her. Carrie’s neck arches back, head banging into his shoulder, and she feels, more than hears, his soft breathy laugh. She’s so overwhelmed by him, the way he envelopes her and consumes her. The way he always, always puts her first. 

He has her pinned, thoroughly, his cock stretching her from behind as he leisurely moves his hips. His fingers drag lazily between her legs, never quite reaching her clit as he slowly, so slowly, smears her wetness over her skin. 

Eventually, almost like an afterthought, he finally presses against her clit. She falls apart with a broken cry, her nails digging into her palms as pleasure rolls through her, as she convulses around him. Quinn isn’t far behind her, his thrusts harder and faster, his arm pulling her tighter, until, with a hot moan that he buries in her shoulder, he comes too. 

His grip on her relaxes. Quiet, he asks, “you okay?” 

At her nod, he pulls slowly back, giving her freedom to move for the first time this morning. Carrie rolls over to face him, her hand creeping out to rest on his rib cage. “Coffee,” she says. 

“You offering?” 

“My arm is asleep,” she says pointedly. 

He looks down at the limb flung over his midsection. “No it isn’t.” 

“What is your aversion to making coffee?” she demands, deflecting. 

“I _always_ make you coffee.” 

“So what’s the problem?” 

“You’re impossible.” 

“So?” 

“So I’m not your personal fuckin’ barista.” 

“But you _could_ be,” Carrie offers. 

Quinn kisses the top of her head. “Tempting, but… no.” 

Aware that she’s blowing her precedent, Carrie sighs theatrically and slides out of bed, looking furtively back at Quinn to see if he’s following her. But he’s only watching her, amused and possibly a little desirous as she bends over to pick up his discarded button-down and slip it on before she disappears into the bathroom to clean up. 

-

Taking a pregnancy test is almost reflexive at this point, and Carrie’s got one out of the cabinet and unwrapped before she’s even cleaned Quinn’s come from between her legs. 

She brushes her teeth while she waits for the test to develop and confirm that, yes, this is something she still needs to deal with. She spits and rinses and puts the test in the drawer with its five dozen compatriots before stepping into the shower. 

-

Quinn’s still stretched out in bed when she emerges fifteen minutes later, but there’s a mug of black coffee on the bedside table, emitting steam. She presses her lips together. 

Carrie adjusts her towel and goes to sit beside him, right on the edge of the mattress. He reaches for her face, gently cups her cheek, and she leans into his palm. 

She feels insatiable, needy, wants to climb back into bed beside him, under him, and never leave. She leans down to kiss him, his hand drifts to the back of her head to pull her closer. 

But not close _enough_. Quinn tugs at the edge of her towel as Carrie shifts, pulling away for an intolerable second to maneuver her body over his. He promptly rolls them both over, the sheets tangling around their legs. Carrie feels breathless as he looks at her, his blue eyes penetrating and it’s too much. 

Quinn drags his fingers lightly down her throat, over her collarbone, brushes his thumb over one intensely sensitive nipple, blazing a trail with his hand that he follows with his mouth. 

He’s at her navel, tongue circling, her breath coming too fast, and then— 

Quinn stops. 

“Carrie,” he says, light open-mouthed kisses on her stomach as he makes his way leisurely back up her body. “Are you hungry?” 

“No,” she answers impatiently. 

“Your stomach is growling.” 

“I’m _fine_ ,” Carrie insists uncomfortably, suddenly aware that she actually hasn’t eaten anything substantial in almost two days. Immediately she is ravenous. Her head falls back against the pillow. “Well, I haven’t been grocery shopping.” 

“I’m shocked.” Quinn pulls away, extracting himself from the mess of bedding, from her. He picks her damp towel up off of the floor. 

Carrie rolls over onto her side, propping herself up on an elbow as she looks up at him. “So let’s order in,” she suggests pointedly. 

“I’m taking you to breakfast. And to the fucking grocery store.” 

She raises her eyebrows, languorously taking in the sight of his naked body. “Like that?” 

“I’m gonna shower,” he says, after a brief pause. 

“You know, there’s a calorie source you _haven’t_ considered.” Her gaze drifts unsubtly from his face to his revived erection, and she bites at her bottom lip. Quinn closes his eyes but doesn’t move for long seconds. 

“I’m gonna shower,” he says again, patiently, ignoring her implication. “Get dressed.” 

And she knows he’s right, for all that she’s not pleased about it, so she just sighs her assent and falls back to the pillow. 

“Carrie?” 

“Yeah?” 

“You can’t suck my dick for sustenance. It’s not practical.” He shuts the bathroom door as Carrie almost chokes on her laughter.

- 

Carrie gets up, gets dressed, and gets out of the room just as she hears the water shut off in the bathroom. She heads to the kitchen to brew another cup of coffee and to take stock of her pathetic refrigerator. 

Quinn comes in, a little bit rumpled in yesterday’s clothes. “Seriously?” he says, eyeing the second cup of coffee. 

“Fuck off.” She picks up her mug from the counter and hands him the fresh one, then taps it against hers with a low _clink_. 

-

She gorges herself at breakfast under Quinn’s approving gaze, but she doesn’t even have time to not be hungry before he’s dragging her to Whole Foods, methodically traveling the perimeter of the store. A rainbow of fruits and vegetables have accumulated in their cart when Carrie says, skeptically, “I won’t eat all of this.” 

They’re not even out of the produce section and she’s already intimidated by the sheer volume. “That is a _pound_ of spinach,” she adds. 

“I know how much spinach it is,” he says mildly, setting the plastic container gently on top of the oranges before returning to the case to check the sell-by date on a bag of kale. 

Carrie makes a face. “Can we start slow, please?” 

“Nope.” 

“I hate kale.” 

He tosses the bag into the cart. “Nobody likes kale.” He keeps walking, glancing behind to make sure that Carrie is keeping up as produce yields to seafood. Quinn pauses.  “How vegetarian are you?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Do you eat fish?” 

Carrie shakes her head, a little concerned. “Uh, no. Nothing with a face.” 

“Clams don’t have faces.” 

“Nothing with a _soul_ , then, Christ.” 

“Okay,” he shrugs, not even smiling, but humoring her in the way he does. 

Carrie frowns, following him. “Do _you_ want fish?” 

“We’re shopping for you.” 

“Yeah, well, _I’m_ not cooking this stuff, so you might as well get what you want.” 

“Don’t worry about me, Carrie.” 

And that’s it, really, their entire dynamic summed up in five words. “Quinn.” 

She approaches him slowly, carefully, slides her arm around his waist as she presses into his side. “Can I use your phone for a minute? You clearly have this handled.” 

“Yeah.” He types in his passcode, barely glancing at the phone before handing it to her. 

“I’ll be right back.”

There are a lot of missed calls, she notices, missed texts too — his phone is set to do not disturb, and of course she’s unreachable too. Saul’s probably furious, and Carrie… can’t really summon the energy to give a fuck. Not now. 

She walks outside, opens the browser on Quinn’s phone, and searches for her doctor’s office number. Her thumb hovers over the link for a good thirty seconds before she swallows and taps the screen, conceding to the reality of her situation. 

While she’s making the appointment, a second call beeps in. She pulls the phone from her ear to see who it is. 

Saul, again, of course. Of _course_. He’s the Acting Director of the CIA, you’d think he’d take a fucking hint. 

Carrie ignores it, confirms her appointment time with the receptionist, and then turns the screen off before going back inside.

-

Back in the car, shopping bags filling the trunk, Carrie can’t stop looking at Quinn. “Everything okay?” he asks. 

“I’m not sure,” Carrie says, thinks, _this is it_ as she shifts in the passenger seat to face him. “Is it?” 

He doesn’t answer immediately, remains in profile while she studies his determinedly unreadable expression. “Not following you.” 

“What did you mean?” she asks, giving up the pretense. “When you said you were done.”

“Carrie…” his eyes flit briefly in her direction. 

“What did you mean?” 

“You know what I meant.” 

“You’d just leave? Just like _that_?” 

“I’ve had one foot out the door for a while now.” 

“To do _what_ , exactly? It’s not like you’re qualified to be a CPA.” 

The tic of his jaw betrays his frustration. His elbow moves to the edge of the window, hand covering his mouth. His right hand is still clenched around the steering wheel. 

As the seconds tick by, Carrie tries to recover, voice softening. “Quinn—” 

“Carrie, I killed a _child_. A little boy. And then yesterday... what the fuck are we doing? How does any of it make anything better? And _your_ operation, the mental institution. Jesus fucking _Christ.”_  

“Well, it _worked._ ” 

She doesn’t even know why she’s defending it, having come on her own to a similar conclusion. 

“Why would you do that, Carrie? It was fucking—” 

“Crazy?” she interjects, preempting him with a cynical laugh. Quinn looks at her, somehow a little disbelieving even now.  “I’m sure it’s occurred to you that ‘crazy’ is why Saul asks me to do this shit.” 

“Saul fucking used you, and you know it. You could have died, Carrie. And you made it worse with your goddamn yoga play.” 

“I didn’t have a choice.” 

“Sure you did. You could’ve let the FBI do their job.” Quinn is almost shouting now. She doesn’t budge, doesn’t shrink back. 

“Well, they _weren’t_. And Dana—” 

“Yeah, let’s talk about Dana. You put your life on the line, your baby’s life on the line, for _Brody’s runaway kid_?” 

Carrie’s mouth drops open. “That is _not_ fair, Quinn.” 

“You’re fucking pregnant, Carrie. Does that mean nothing?” 

Furious, she glares at him. “Not really.” He whips his head to look at her, and she can’t avoid the sudden shame that pervades her when she glimpses the flash of hurt in his eyes. 

But she’s resolute if not resolved on the matter, and she pulls back uncomfortably. “Well, until three days ago, I assumed I’d be having an abortion.” 

“And now?” 

There’s a long, heavy quiet as she waits for him to ask the next question. The one she doesn’t have an answer for. 

But he doesn’t. 

“What happened last time, Quinn?” 

“Exactly what you think, Carrie. My job happened.” 

“Did you love her?” 

"Thought I did.” 

It’s like an interrogation, alone in this closed space, no running. No distractions. 

She longs for the simplicity of the morning as they suffer the mutual silence. 

“You loved him, though. _Love_ him, right?” Carrie blinks, caught off-guard by the question — disbelieving, too, at his reversal. 

“What?” She stalls, trying to think. The truth is, she hasn’t quite come to grips with her feelings for Brody, too overcome trying to make up for all of the damage he’d done. She doesn’t love him — there’s no present-tense with Brody, for Brody. He’s gone. What can it matter? 

“You were gonna leave the Agency, right? Live happily ever after with him.” 

“I thought about it,” she admits. “I wanted to.” 

“He was a fucking terrorist, Carrie.” 

“Thanks for the headline. It’s not exactly my strong suit, choosing the right men. In case you hadn’t fucking noticed.” 

Carrie lets her head fall back against the seat, turns her face toward the window. “Anyway, I don’t.” 

“What?” 

She pulls in a deep breath of air. Her lungs swell with it. “I don’t love Brody. Jesus, Quinn. How could I?” 

Quinn’s voice is low and tight when he asks, hesitantly, “what changed?” 

_That’s a hell of a question_ , Carrie thinks. The highlight reel of Brody’s sins plays in her head, not for the first time — interspersed with other moments, too, the cabin. The interrogation room. The look in his eyes when he kissed her goodbye for the last time; that always hits her hard, the false sincerity. That’s what she hangs defiantly on to whenever she catches herself thinking wistfully back to the life she thought she wanted. 

“Everything,” she finally sighs. “I just… everything, Quinn.” 

It ameliorates the tension a little, and she tilts her head toward him. His hands have loosened on the steering wheel, his shoulders aren’t so tight. 

“Okay,” he says, barely masking his skepticism. She doesn’t really know what else to say, how to make it better — she _feels_ better now, a little lighter now, but the tension remains. 

Quinn pulls smoothly up in front of her building and parks, shutting off the ignition. As they get out of the car, he says, “I'll help you with the bags.” 

“Thanks,” she answers absently. “Wait, are you going somewhere?” 

“Home.” 

“Why?” 

“I’ve been wearing the same fucking clothes for two days.” 

“Are you coming back?” 

“Depends. Can I trust you to feed yourself?” 

Carrie pauses. “You know, I managed to keep myself alive for a long time before you showed up.” 

“Well, it’s not just you anymore, Carrie,” Quinn says, his tone irritated. He rounds on her seriously, lips pursed as he regards her. “You need to figure your shit out.” 

“I’m _trying_.” 

Quinn doesn’t reply, just hands her two of the lighter bags to bring inside. She can hold them both in one hand, but he is gathering everything else up himself; she digs out her keys and walks toward her front door, leaving it ajar for him to follow. 

She notices, for the first time, her spare keys in the center of her table. Carrie scoops them up on her way to the kitchen. 

When Quinn comes in and sets down the bags, he pauses. "Are you capable of putting these away or...?"

"I think I can handle it," she says, her tone dry, and she holds up the key ring. "You didn't take these."

“You didn’t give them to me.” 

“I didn’t think I needed to.” She closes the gap between them, takes his hand and presses the keys into his palm. “After everything... Quinn, what _is_ this? How do you not even have clothes here?” 

His expression is simultaneously dark and incredulous. “Jesus Christ, Carrie.” 

It seems like he’s about to say something else, but Carrie shakes her head and moves to start putting everything away. “Just go, Quinn. Come back or don’t.” 

“Fine,” is all he gives her before he leaves, and she is left on her own to wonder, and worry, and wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to SNQA and obviously to Leblanc1. My life has chilled out marginally, so hopefully I won't do that to you again.


	11. Chapter 11

Every time he comes back to his place, the surroundings seem a little more depressing. Drab and white, cheap particleboard furniture — empty rooms that will stay empty, and a shelf full of cheap liquor that he’s destined to drink alone.

He’s spent his life like this, transitory, no connections and nothing permanent. Everything in his home — if he can even call it that — is replaceable. It isn’t the same with Carrie; she has things to leave behind. He’s only got her. 

He wonders how they fell into this. How the fuck had he let himself get sucked into this mess? When did she start to feel like home?

It’s fucking pathetic. Crazy, too, how badly he wants it, even though he knows she’s in love with another man. 

She’s banished it to the very recesses of her mind, to the place Carrie keeps all the shit she doesn’t want to deal with, but he knows. He remembers. From the very first day they’d met, she’d deflected his questions — but it had been clear even then that it was love. He knew how hard she was fighting it, too, he watched her struggle with it every day.

He’d seen it all, and the sight of her with Brody, through his scope in the trees, had been enough to spare the terrorist's life. Her very capacity to love Brody, in spite of what he was, had opened the door for him. Pitiful.

Whatever she says, even if she believes it, he knows he’s coming in second to a ghost (if he’s even ranked at all).

He packs a bag anyway.

-

“You haven’t been answering your phone, Peter.” 

Dar Adal is standing in the kitchen, eyeing the bottle of Jim Beam on the counter before turning imperiously toward his protégé. “It’s been thirty-six hours.” 

Quinn shrugs. “I took a personal day.”

“Feeling refreshed? Revitalized?” Bitter sarcasm drips from Dar’s voice, but Quinn ignores it, leans back against the cupboard. “Saul told me about your operation, Peter.” 

“Then you know why I took the day off.” 

“There’s more to it.” 

“There usually is.” 

“I want to pull you out, Peter.” 

“That’s abrupt,” Quinn says, shifting, folding his arms across his chest.  

“It’s time you got back to work,” Dar replies, moving to mirror Quinn’s posture. “The Group is shipping out in a few days. Pakistan. They could really use you.” 

His gaze drifts past Dar, to the light streaming through his dingy window. _This could be it_ , he considers. He can hit the reset button on his life, let Carrie do the same. 

She doesn’t want his baby — if it even is his. She might desire him, but she doesn’t _want_ him — it’s a struggle to remember that, sometimes, when she’s gasping beneath him and crying out his name. But he knows it, and it’s almost enough to weaken his resolve. 

“I can’t,” he says finally, taking the first step toward keeping a promise. “I’m done taking missions.” 

“Peter.” Dar’s voice is admonishing, all at once disbelieving and somehow unsurprised.

“I can’t,” he repeats. 

“You’re my best soldier. Your team needs you.” 

They’re talking in circles, they’ve had this conversation before — Quinn’s tried to leave, to make a life outside the Company. With Julia, once, but he’d been fooling himself then, lying to her. Her kid’s named after a temporary iteration of Peter’s life, a blip in his history. 

But he was younger then, more devoted to the cause. He was less jaded, too, could actually rationalize the horror he inflicted.

In the end, he knew that he could never keep the promises he’d wanted so badly to make; when Julia had come to understand that, she’d asked him to go. 

It had been the right choice for her, but Carrie is different. He is too.

 _So I stop taking missions,_ he’d said, and if it hadn’t been a promise, it was a start. She may not want a life with him but she needs him. For now.

“I’m sorry,” he says, finally. 

“You’re making a mistake, Peter,” Dar warns him gravely. He regards Quinn critically, thoughtful. “So I can’t appeal to your sense of duty. Fine. But you are being a goddamn fool to abandon your mission, your colleagues, your entire _life_ , for a goddamn piece of ass.” 

Quinn straightens, fist clenching, as he brings himself to his full height and glares down at his mentor. “Excuse me?” 

“Don’t play stupid, you’ve been fucking Carrie Mathison for months. You think I don’t know where you’ve been spending your nights? For god’s sake, Peter, how do you expect this to end?”

Quinn steps forward, jaw tight. “Get the fuck out of my house,” he commands, his voice low and dangerous. 

Dar holds his ground, unperturbed. “The transport leaves in 48 hours, Peter. Be on it. It’s for your own good.” He exhales sharply, punctuating his order, and he spares Quinn one more look before he walks out the door, letting it slam behind him.

-

When Dar is gone, he sweeps the place for bugs. 

Dar is right — he hasn’t slept here in ages, the apartment is essentially a storage unit with a bed at this point. And yet, twice in two days, Dar has managed to catch him here. That’s not a coincidence. 

His anti-intrusion devices are all still in place. He knows better than to trust that, of course, they’re only safeguards and they’ve been breached before — but he starts outside, detector in hand, and methodically covers every inch of his small yard. He checks his car too, but on his last trip home he’d been driving Carrie’s, so he’s not especially concerned about that — unless they’re _both—_

But he puts that out of his mind as he scans the tire wells, the undercarriage, the fenders. Everything until he’s satisfied that his outer perimeter is clear, then he grimly goes back in.

It doesn’t take him long to find the tiny camera in the end, placed surreptitiously on the bookshelf in the shadow of his copy of _Great Expectations._  

The photo isn’t tucked in its pages anymore, of course. He’s learned to be wary of the smallest sentimentality. He keeps nothing here.

Quinn pulls out the camera, wraps it up in the palm of his hand, and looks at it for a long moment before bringing it to the sink. He drops the device into the garbage disposal and flicks the switch.

-

He covers the rest of the place, but it all comes up clean. Not that it matters. He won’t stay here long, now. 

When he’s done, he pours a glass of whiskey and lets himself sink into the stiff cushions of his second-hand couch. 

The mission is appealing, in a way. To disappear back into the Group, target-focused, to surrender to the muscle-memory and commands. He could set Carrie free, too. 

She doesn’t want this baby, and on some level he can’t blame her. The man she loves is dead. Quinn knows that he is only a distraction from her grief.

 _Rebounding from a terrorist to an assassin_ , Quinn thinks, resentful. He wonders if she will ever stop inviting dangerous men into her bed. If she will ever let herself be safe.

It should be an easy decision. Take the mission. Let her go. Give her the out, the go-ahead to terminate the pregnancy. She’s looking for his permission. He can feel it.

But he remembers waking up this morning with Carrie in his arms, warm and pliable molded against him. It was the closest he’d come in a long time to anything resembling contentment and he knows he’d give anything to hold on to that.

There can be a future, if she allows it. He can envision their kid, Carrie’s inscrutably green eyes, his own dark hair. A life far away from the hell they live in now, somewhere safe. With her. 

He sighs and brings the drink to his lips, draining it. He pours another.

_Fuck it._

He puts down the glass and picks up his car keys. He told her he’d come back — he’d meant to, anyway. He wants to; she needs him. 

He rises, but sits again almost immediately. _No._

What Carrie needs, more than anything, is to figure out what she wants. He isn’t helping.

The time he spends with her, taking care of her, touching her, holding her while she sleeps... it’s muddying the waters. They could both benefit from some distance. He tosses the keys back to the table and picks up his drink again, and his phone. 

He taps in the passcode and opens Safari. His thumb is hovering over the screen when he notices the results of the most recent search: 

_Nicole Duncan, OB/GYN._

He sucks in a sharp breath and lets his head fall back against the sofa. She hadn’t said a fucking word. 

-

An hour passes, then two. He drinks the bottle empty and then finishes what he started, fumbling through the browser to order her dinner. He considers a raw vegan place in DC, but he figures the least he can do is spare her kale for a day or two. 

He sends her pizza and a salad and closes his eyes.

-

There’s a little girl in his dream, red hair and startling blue eyes. They’re in his childhood kitchen — she’s sitting on her mother’s lap while Quinn stands over the stove, listening intently as Carrie reads from his favorite childhood book. 

“ _‘Finis,’ said the zucchini,_ ” she says as she turns the last page, and when she looks up at him, she smiles.  

-

“What the _fuck_ , Quinn?” 

The Carrie on the other end of the line, the Carrie who roused him from sleep, is not smiling. He doesn’t have to be sober, or even in her presence, to know that. 

“Hey,” he says. 

“Where are you?” she demands. He blinks warily in the darkness, unable to pinpoint the precise emotion in her voice. 

“My place. I told you.” He gropes for the lamp and turns it on, revealing his _place_ — spartan and grey, dreary as hell. 

“You left seven hours ago. You sent me a fucking _pizza_. And I’m here, just fucking… _waiting_ , and Saul is calling, and… why didn’t you come back, Quinn?” 

“I got busy.”

“You got _drunk_ ,” she accuses him, and he almost wants to laugh, because that’s Carrie. He’s barely said ten words to her, and she just knows. Everything.

“That too,” he concedes. “What do you want, Carrie?” 

“I thought you were coming back,” she says. 

“We could both use some space,” he replies, not entirely honest. Not exactly lying. He’s a phone call away from all the space in the world. 

Carrie is silent for a long moment before she quietly asks, “is that what _you_ want?” 

“Does it matter?” 

“What _do_ you want?” she pushes. 

He wants to ask her the same thing, but he doesn’t. They can only speak in questions for so long, evading answers.

“I made an appointment,” she says, after a long beat. “Tomorrow.” 

“Yeah?” He makes no effort to keep the edge out of his tone. 

“I’m seeing an OB,” she says, refusing to bite. “Maybe get some answers. I was going to tell you.” 

“Why?” He hears her sigh a little wistfully on the other end of the line. 

“I just need to know, Quinn.” 

“Why are you telling me?” he clarifies, wondering if she gets it, wondering if she’ll ever answer the question that he’s really asking. 

She does, like she always does, sharp and in his head and cutting through the fog. It’s always been like this with her, all at once impressive and irritating. “What if it’s not yours?” 

Bullseye. 

He can’t lie to her. He’s vastly unprepared to tell her the truth. So for a while he just stays quiet, struggling to find the words she’ll want to hear. 

He never does. Quietly, he says,  “I don't think it matters to me, Carrie.” 

Quinn hears her breath hitch. He starts counting the seconds, the silence. Waiting. He feels like he’s always waiting for her. 

He gets to seventy-two before he realizes, abruptly, that the line’s gone dead. 

 _Fuck_ , he thinks, and he gets up to pour himself another drink. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leblanc1, you are my rock. 
> 
> The book Carrie briefly quotes is _The Green Machine_ , by Polly Cameron. It's been out of print for a very long time, but Quinn would have liked it.
> 
> Readers, just a note that on October 29-30 LiveJournal will be launching Fic Me - HL Book Club featuring a discussion with Finlyfoe regarding her Julia Files fic series. Details are here: http://homelandstuff.livejournal.com/11403.html. Join us! If you're not a member, you have the option to participate anonymously.


	12. Chapter 12

Fuck Peter Quinn.

_Fuck_ him, she thinks, fighting the temptation to fling her brand new iPhone against the wall.

The pizza, untouched, is still in her kitchen, along with the shitty salad he’d sent with it. _Iceberg lettuce_ , she fumes to herself, thinking about the giant thing of spinach in her crisper, _what’s the point?_

Thanks to _fucking_ Quinn, there’s no room in the refrigerator to shove the pizza box. Instead she takes it all outside and drops the food into the trash bin, because _fuck_ him and fuck his food and fuck the position he’s put her in with his alcohol-honest words.

What she wants is a glass of wine. Or a shot of tequila. Even that shitty vodka they’d consumed that first night (and several nights subsequent), and never replaced when the last bottle clinked into the recycling bin.

At this point, the only alcohol in her apartment is the bottle of Jameson she bought for him. _Fuck,_ she thinks, then, _it’ll do._

She storms back inside, slamming the door for nobody’s benefit but her own.

In the kitchen, Carrie retrieves the almost-full bottle from the shelf and pours. The glass is halfway to her lips when she realizes what she’s doing — what she has _not_ been doing, ever since she saw that first plus sign appear on that godforsaken test.

Her eyes fill abruptly with tears as she empties the whiskey, untasted, into the sink.

_Fucking_ Quinn.

He should be here. It’s absurd how upset she is that he’s not; she wishes she could understand _why_ she feels this way. She can’t possibly have the right to — she hasn’t given him much. _Anything_ , really, but she’s been trying.

Quinn _must_ know what he’s come to mean to her. He knows everything else, has always been able to see right through her. He’s always called her on her shit.

More than anything, he keeps her grounded, distracted. Without him she’s just alone and craving Jameson with every cell in her pathetic, pregnant self. God, she fucking misses him.

Desperate suddenly for something else to focus on, she picks up her cell phone from the coffee table. It had been couriered over from Langley once Saul had evidently grown weary of the endless unanswered ringing of her burner. She doesn’t know what he’s thinking — if he assumes her cheap throwaway phone is dead, or if he’s aware she’s been ignoring him.

She’s sure it must be clear now, at least. The package was delivered hours ago, and she’s missed three calls since she signed for it. The note Saul included has been long discarded; the only number she’s dialed has been Quinn’s.

But the (Acting) Director of the CIA can’t be put off forever, and she’s pretty sure that if she doesn’t answer he’ll just show up at her door. She thinks longingly of the whiskey in her kitchen as she taps the screen to return his call.

“Carrie,” he answers immediately. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“I’ve been here.”

“Everything all right?” he asks, sounding convincingly concerned — that’s how he always gets her, and she closes her eyes, willing herself not to fall for it. “You did good work, Carrie.”

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

“Peter hasn’t been answering his phone, either,” Saul informs her, as if she doesn’t already know. She wonders if this is a test — Quinn’s been here, too, and for spies they haven’t been especially discreet.

She hedges. “It was a hard operation, Saul.”

“We’re only half done,” he informs her.

That brings her genuine pause. She isn’t really sure what to say — she _is_ done, as far as she’s concerned it’s mission _fucking_ accomplished. Whatever is next, she wants no part of it, and she guesses that Quinn doesn’t either.

But Saul must take her silence for acquiescence, because he says, “I need you back at Langley tomorrow.”

“Saul—”

“It’s important, Carrie,” he interrupts her.

“I need more time.”

“ _Carrie_ ,” he says, all admonishment, dismay, a tone she’s heard a million times before and always, always caves to. “We still have work to do.”

And normally that would convince her, his disappointment playing on her own determination to see things through. But she’s done all she said she would, and in her heart she knows that Quinn is right; Saul will never stop asking her for more. Nothing she does will ever be enough.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” she says, finally, and she disconnects the call before he can say anything else.

-

Carrie turns out the lights and goes back to her bedroom. She undresses, leaving her clothes in a rumpled pile by her closet, and slips into rarely-worn pajamas before going into the bathroom to finish getting ready for bed — washing her face, brushing her teeth, taking another fucking test that she doesn’t even bother to look at the results of.

Tomorrow, she considers, she might know more.

Before she gets into bed, she changes the sheets.

-

She lies awake for a long time, in the darkness, on her side of the bed. She’s not sure when she began thinking of it that way, a space to be shared — but it bothers her. Defiantly, she shifts to the center of the mattress and stretches out the way she used to, before.

Her elbow bends as she brings her palm to rest on her abdomen. It still isn’t real to her. A _baby_. She wonders who it is.

_I don’t think it matters to me_ , Quinn had said, and isn’t that just fucking wonderful. She’s glad it doesn’t matter to _him_ , is glad that he’s so goddamn sure of himself. She’ll see just how much it doesn’t matter when the kid pops out with red hair.

Brody’s eyes. Brody’s smile. ( _The best of him_ , she can't help but think — she can keep that.)

She hasn’t allowed herself to consider it, not like this.

But she forces herself to examine the other side, too. His duplicity. His complete absence of integrity and honor — was it a product of the torture? Or had his years under Nazir’s control only amplified what was already there?

_And then there’s me,_ and god knows she's no fucking prize.

Could the sum of her and Brody be anything less than volatile?

Look at Dana, and her mother wasn’t even crazy. Jessica _wanted_ her kids, too, they were probably even _planned_. Jessica probably would have even had more if her husband hadn’t disappeared.

Carrie lets her head fall to the side, stares into the darkness at the empty space beside her.

What a fucking legacy Brody left behind. Two kids whose lives he fucked up more by coming home than by being captured in the first place, and a potential third with his — what? Mistress? What good could possibly come of another Brody child on the planet?

Of _course_ she doesn’t love him anymore, she thinks. Quinn’s question — _what changed? —_ echoes in her mind, and she finally considers it.

What changed? What _hasn’t?_

Brody had lied to her again and again. The last words he’d ever said to her had been lies, and he’d kissed her goodbye like it wasn’t the last time. Until Langley had exploded she’d considered abandoning the CIA for him, this life she had built and fought for.

It had only been a few hours later that she’d invited another man into her bed; she’d almost begged Quinn to fuck her in the wake of the massacre.

And it had been Quinn, completely, her relief that he was alive transforming almost immediately into desperate need. For _him_ — however skeptical he may have been of her motives.

Maybe if it had just been that once — or twice, she feels like she could let it go, but Quinn’s become a fixture in her life, has filled a gap she hadn’t even known existed.

Brody was never _there_. He’d been a churning storm of intensity and confusion. And he’d never been hers. Never really hers. He couldn’t be.

For the first time she considers that maybe that’s why she’d wanted him so badly.

He'd served the same purpose as that engagement ring she used to wear; a symbol of something real, but meaningless in the end.

There was no substance to it. To _them_. Brody never grounded her. The opposite, in fact, and he’d never wanted to. She’d gotten ECT because of him, for fuck’s sake.

Just the thought of that throws an unpleasant jolt through her body, the memory of it. The memories she lost.

And yet, in spite of everything that happened, things she remembers and doesn’t, in spite of _herself —_ she misses him.

Would it really be the end of the world to look at her child and see Brody’s face, a living echo of the man she’d loved?

But to share that life, two lives, with another man…

How can it not _matter_ to him?

God. She feels the tears streaming down her face, dampening the pillowcase under her cheek.

She has no idea what she’s doing.

It would be so easy, at least practically, to just start over. To give up the baby and go back to work, to live her life like none of this ever happened. That had been her plan. Her only plan. And she’s not entirely convinced, even now, that it’s not the right one. She could have a clean slate.

She reaches for her phone on the nightstand and checks for unread messages, half-hoping there’s something she’d missed.

But there isn’t, and though her finger hovers over Quinn’s name for a long time, she finds herself tapping out a message to her sister. _Fuck Quinn_ , she thinks, with some finality, as she slams the phone down on his pillow.

-

After a night of tossing and turning, she awakens to a stream of light angling through her bedroom window and the vibration of her telephone somewhere to her left.

She fumbles blearily for it, blinking to get a look at the screen before she brings it to her ear.

“Maggie, hi,” she says, struggling to push herself up into a seated position.

“Is something wrong?” her sister asks immediately, no hello.  

Right. Her message. “No, sorry. Just waking up.”

Her sister pauses. “You’re usually at Langley by now.”

“Well, not today,” Carrie answers vaguely. “I have a doctor’s appointment this morning. Can you come?”

“So something _is_ wrong.”

“Nothing’s _wrong_ , Maggie,” she snaps, and in a way, after last night, she thinks she might almost mean it. “It’s at ten. Will you come?”

“Well, I’d have to reschedule some patients,” Maggie says, taken aback. There’s a beat of silence.  “I’ll pick you up at nine,” she adds, a little more softly, “unless you want to come here, see Dad… he’d love it if you’d let him feed you.”

“No,” Carrie says too quickly. “Just you. I need to see you, Maggie.”

“Okay,” Maggie agrees. “I’ll pick you up.”

-

It’s funny how much more quickly she gets her shit together in the mornings when she’s by herself.

She’s seated at her table, gamely drinking from a bottle of the greenest juice she’s ever tasted. She’s not clear how Quinn got this past her at the grocery store, but there are five bottles lined up on the shelf in her refrigerator door. She’s trying.

No contact from Quinn since she hung up on him, though. It might be his pride, or maybe he’s just sleeping off the booze, but either way, their conversation is not finished. Not by a long shot.

Carrie hears her doorknob jiggling, and then there’s a knock when her sister’s key doesn’t turn in the lock. _Fuck_ , she thinks — that’s something else she’s going to have to explain. She pastes on a smile before she opens the door.

“I brought bagels,” Maggie volunteers as soon as she steps inside, holding up a brown bag. “What’s going on with you? And why isn’t my key working?”

“I’m pregnant,” Carrie blurts out, unable to help herself, the need to talk to _somebody_ acute and immediate. “I’m fucking pregnant, Maggie,” she repeats, unable to stop herself from bursting into tears.

“You’re pregnant,” Maggie echoes, disbelieving, and walks straight past Carrie into the kitchen. She tosses the paper bag onto the table before sinking into a chair.

“I’m pregnant.” Carrie confirms over the lump in her throat. She follows Maggie and sinks down into the chair opposite her sister.

“Who’s the father?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Tell me you know who the father of your baby is, Carrie.”

Elbows on the table, Carrie lets her head fall into her hands. “I’m seeing somebody… maybe. It’s hard to explain,” she says, staring down at the polished wood, like she could ever adequately describe her relationship with Quinn, even to herself. “But. It might be Brody’s.”

Maggie is silent. Carrie forces herself to look up, to meet her sister’s reproachful gaze. “I just don’t know, Maggie,” she says, her voice cracking again.

An eternity seems to pass before Maggie finally asks. “Do you have a plan?” she asks, reaching across the table to take Carrie’s hand, threading their fingers together.

“What do you think?”

Maggie nods slowly, finally understanding the implications, and Carrie’s desperation to see her. “What about the guy you’re _maybe_ seeing? Does he know?”

Carrie swallows. “Yeah. He wants it.”

“He knows it might not be his?”

There’s a long beat while Carrie glances away, brushing the tears from her cheek with her free hand. “Yeah.”

Her sister exhales, muttering, “Christ.”

“But… what if it’s not his, Maggie? He says it doesn’t matter, but how is that even possible?”

“You’ll have to ask him,” Maggie says gently, her tone cultivated by years of talking people down from ledges. “Have you considered that maybe he just wants to be with you?”

Carrie lets out a short, bitter laugh. “He’s too smart for that.”

“You’d be surprised,” Maggie says, and then, "what do  _you_ want, Carrie?"

“I don’t know.”

“Okay.” Maggie sits back, breaking the grip of their clasped fingers. Her eyes land on the bottle of juice Carrie’s drinking. She picks it up and looks at the label. “Who are you and what on earth have you done with my sister?”

“Quinn bought it.” She gestures for Maggie to return the bottle. She twists off the cap and takes a sip, making a face as she swallows. “It sucks.”

Maggie purses her lips, cocking her head as she zeroes in. “Quinn? Is that him?”

“Peter Quinn,” Carrie confirms, looking away. “Yeah.”

“If I didn’t know any better,” Maggie says sagely, as Carrie forces herself to drink a little more, “I’d _think_ —”

“Don’t say it, Maggie,” Carrie interrupts, shaking her head. “Please. We should go.”

-

Dr. Nicole Duncan has a no-bullshit attitude that appeals to Carrie immediately. She’s a woman who has seen it all, every possible situation, and she doesn’t so much as raise an eyebrow when Carrie admits that she isn’t sure who the father is.

It brings Carrie down to earth, a little, to realize that her situation isn’t exceptional. Or even all that interesting.

“We can do an ultrasound,” the doctor says, “to calculate the approximate gestational age. When did you take your first positive pregnancy test?”

“January 20th,” she says, and neglects to mention the seven other tests she’d immediately followed up with. “I wasn’t planning to keep it,” she adds defensively, as Dr. Duncan adds this information to the computer. “I still might not.”

“For now, let’s assume you are,” Nicole replies lightly. “What medications are you taking?”

She glances quickly at her sister, seated in the chair beside her. “Um, lithium. Eighteen hundred milligrams. Clonazepam. I _was_ on the pill until I found out, which… can’t be good, right?”

“Well, lithium is the one we’d typically worry about, and I’d recommend you stop taking the clonazepam, but there’s a good chance you won’t have to alter your treatment _too_ much due to the pregnancy. With the lithium, it’s all about keeping vigilant.”

“There was a lot of drinking,” she volunteers. “Too much.”

“And now?”

Carrie shakes her head.

“We’ll do the tests, Carrie. You’re not the first woman who’s been caught unaware.”

-

Maggie is in the room with her the first time Carrie sees her baby. “Look what you made,” Maggie says softly, gesturing toward the monitor.

“It looks like a baby,” Carrie says, swallowing, not sure why she’s even saying it. She can see it moving. She tells herself it doesn’t mean anything to her, at least not practically. _Scientifically_. She’s seen a thousand of these things before, TV and movies and hung on her sister’s fridge.  
  
But this is different, broadcasting straight from her body, and Carrie feels a sudden, aching longing. She grabs for Maggie’s hand as she stares, rapt, at the ultrasound. “Fuck,” she chokes, and for the first time she realizes that she is completely, irrevocably screwed.

That’s her baby. Or it _will_ be, and that’s that — decision made, right? After all that exhaustive contemplation and denial, it turns out she’s a fucking cliché. “Maggie,” she manages, her mouth dry. “Look.”

“Yeah,” Maggie smiles.

Carrie nods, looks at her doctor. “What’s the… can you tell?”

“Yes, just a second, Carrie.”

She finds herself holding her breath as Dr. Duncan freezes the image and then carefully, methodically, pinpoints two spots at either edge of her almost-child. “Twelve weeks. Give or take a few days, your due date would be… September 5th.”

_Twelve weeks._ Three months. “Does that help?” the doctor asks gently.

“Yeah,” Carrie manages, trying to stop the tears that are threatening to fall. “Completely. Fuck.”

Quinn’s voice: _I don’t think it matters to me, Carrie,_ replays in her head. She can’t wait to find out if he still feels that way. Or fucking _not_ , because how can she ask that of him? How can she ask him to raise Brody’s baby?

She thanks god he’s not here with her right now, couldn’t bear to look him in the eye.

Maggie is talking, Carrie feels like she’s drowning. It was fifty-fifty — she thought it was even odds, but Brody’s baby has been inside of her since before she even kissed Quinn for the first time.

“Do you want to hear the heartbeat?” the doctor is asking, when words finally break through to Carrie.

Carrie shakes her head and begins to push herself up off of the exam table. “No, I can’t. No.” Maggie snags a paper towel and hands it to Carrie so that she can wipe the gel from her abdomen, and Carrie swipes halfheartedly at it, pulling her shirt down. The fabric sticks to her skin.

“I have to go,” Carrie says, feeling shaky on her legs as she steps to the ground. “Maggie. Please.”

“Just a sec,” Maggie answers, but Carrie doesn’t wait. She can’t. She rushes out to the hallway, leaving her sister behind in the tiny claustrophobic room to apologize for her.

What, she wonders, her heart in her throat, is she going to do now?

She wants this baby, she gets it. She’s never admitted it to herself, but she knows now, and everything up to this moment suddenly makes sense.

This whole time she’s been dancing around the issue with Quinn — she knew he’d want it too, that’s why she fucking _waited_ , and didn’t just terminate the pregnancy the day after she got that first positive test. If it had been Quinn’s, at least there’d be a _reason_ , it’d be _possible,_ he’d be a steady influence to negate everything that’s wrong with her.

God, she should have just fucking done it. She still can.

She’s completely fucked.

Carrie can barely see anything through the tears that are blurring her eyes, and she misses her sister’s approach until she feels Maggie’s arm slide carefully around her waist.

“Home?” Maggie asks, her voice soft and quiet, comforting.

Carrie shakes her head.

When her breathing calms enough, she asks Maggie to take her to Quinn’s.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you always and forever to Leblanc1. This shit is hard.
> 
> Additional thanks to FrangipaniFlower, who was absurdly helpful with this chapter. 
> 
> Everybody else, I'm sorry.


	13. Chapter 13

It’s raining when they leave the doctor’s office. She hadn’t noticed the dark sky before, but Maggie — always perfect, always prepared — withdraws an umbrella from her purse and pops it open. Carrie wipes the tears from her cheeks, irritated, as she glances at her fucking Girl Scout of a sister.

Carrie’s never spent much time thinking about what could have been — what _she_ could have been, if she’d been the Mathison kid blessed with the balanced brain chemistry. Maggie might’ve been fine with the family condition, the responsibility is hardwired in her; but maybe Carrie would have been fine, too, without it.

Maybe she wouldn’t be carrying a terrorist’s baby, wishing it belonged instead to an assassin.

As they get in the car, Maggie says, “you want to tell me what you’re thinking?”

“I need to talk to Quinn,” Carrie answers, relenting a little.

“Talk to me first,” Maggie suggests, and Carrie just nods, grateful suddenly for her sister.

Carrie starts out simply, obviously — “I fucked up, Maggie,” and then the rest spills out. Brody’s story — the public-facing side of it, anyway, and then Quinn. “I’ve been seeing him since…” she trails off, slumping in the passenger seat. “And _now_ …” she gestures toward her stomach, reaching for the hem of her shirt.

“Twelve weeks,” she finishes, swallowing hard. “It can’t be Quinn’s.”

“You need to do a paternity test,” Maggie says firmly. “Now. Carrie, whatever choice you make, your life is going to change. You need to be sure. Ultrasounds aren’t — they’re not perfect. You need to do a blood test.”

She can’t help but think about the dozens of pregnancy tests she took, _saved_ , threw in Quinn’s face. The tests she kept taking, each time praying for a different result. But those tests had never, ever made her feel like _this._

“Fuck,” she sighs.

“We can do it right now,” Maggie adds, cocking her head back toward the hospital. “Discreetly. It’ll only take a few days, you just need to…”

“Call Quinn,” Carrie finishes, feeling her throat constrict around the words. “Yeah.”

-

It’s been less than a day since he walked out the door, so Carrie can’t explain the sudden warmth that floods her body when he strides into the Starbucks where they’d agreed to meet. She rises, can’t help herself, and she steps forward and right into his arms.

She can feel Maggie watching her — watching _them_ , but she hears Quinn introducing himself to her sister over the top of her head, and she just presses her face more closely to his chest, thinking: _twelve fucking weeks._

Carrie focuses on her breathing, counts to five on the inhale, five on the exhale, over and over until his grasp on her loosens. “Hey,” he says, and she blinks, finding Maggie standing beside her with Carrie’s latte in her hand. She pulls away, a little embarrassed. “You ready?”

And of course she isn’t. She really, really isn’t. “Yeah,” she lies, though, straightening. She fakes a smile, fooling exactly no one. “Let’s get it over with.”

-

The tech draws blood, first Carrie’s, then Quinn’s, then she asks, “are there any other specimens you would like to compare?”

Carrie feels her cheeks grow hot as her eyes dart quickly toward Quinn, then down to her hands. “No! No, I’m… no.”

Her phone chimes at that moment, blessedly giving her something else to focus on. But as she swipes at the screen, she notices that Quinn has withdrawn his own device from his pocket. “Fucking Saul,” he mutters, and Carrie opens the group text.

_Report to Langley ASAP. Both of you. Urgent. Not a request._

“Jesus Christ,” Carrie says, irritated. “What the fuck, Quinn?”

He shrugs, looking mystified. “I’ll just go, Carrie.”

“That’ll go over well.” Resigned, she shakes her head as she stands, gathering the jacket she’s left pooled on the chair. “I just need to tell Maggie we’re leaving.”

“Sure.”

-

“Why doesn’t it matter, Quinn?” Carrie asks. The hospital is only twenty minutes from Langley — less, with Quinn at the wheel — so she doesn’t have time to ease into it.

He glances at her before bringing his eyes back to the road. “What?”

“On the phone,” she says, letting him stall. “The paternity. You said it didn’t matter to you.”

“I wish I fuckin’ knew,” he sighs, an answer so wholly unsatisfying that Carrie could honestly cry.

But she doesn’t, steels herself instead as she shifts to look at him. “I’m twelve weeks pregnant, Quinn. That’s what the doctor said.”

She waits, letting the math sink in for him. “Three fucking months,” she adds, and she watches the bob of his Adam’s apple.

“Three months,” he repeats, stunned. Like he hadn’t actually considered the possibility.

“Maggie says the ultrasound isn’t a perfect measurement… I guess she should know. That’s why I asked for the blood test, but… three months, Quinn.”

His jaw clenches as he nods. “It’s okay if it matters now,” she says softly, transferring her gaze to the window. “It’s not what I wanted, either.”

He reaches across the console to take her hand, fingers curling around her palm. “You figured it out?”

She remembers the image on the screen, her almost-baby, and she nods tightly. “I was so clear for a minute, Quinn, and then…” This time, she can’t stop the tears from welling up. “Twelve weeks. Just like that.”

“Did the doctor say anything else?”

“No. I don’t know. I left.”

“Carrie…”

“How can I have Brody’s kid, Quinn?” she muses, upset and uncertain. “Last night, I thought… I mean, Brody’s not even _here_ , but today… I don’t know.”

“You want the baby,” he surmises, and the awe in his voice knocks the wind out of her.

“Maybe… yeah. Fuck, Quinn. I didn’t want it to be _his_.”

“Carrie,” he says gently, squeezing her hand. She looks at him. “It’s _yours_.”

She shakes her head. “No. I don’t — I don’t know if I can do it. Not alone. And Quinn, I can’t — I _won’t_ ask you to turn your life upside down for Brody’s kid. That’s crazy.”

There’s a long beat before he asks, quietly, “what if I want to?”

She lets out a short, derisive laugh as she swipes her free hand over her eyes. “You should get out while you still can.”

“We can both get out.”

There’s no mistaking the sincerity, and Carrie feels overwhelmed by it all. She doesn’t deserve whatever he’s offering her; _he_ deserves better. And when he realizes, weeks, months, years down the road… when he can’t take her anymore, he’ll leave. No strings. No reason to stay behind.

Like he left his actual kid.

“Quinn, I’m…” She lets out a shaky breath. “I’m scared,” she admits. “I’m fucking terrified.”

It’s the first time she’s admitted it — even to herself, and once the words are out there she finds herself stunned by them. All the shit she’s done for her country, the things she’s put herself through, the things she’s been _put_ through, and it’s a baby that’s her undoing.

They pull into Langley. Carrie averts her eyes from the still-damaged building — the debris has been cleared of Brody’s last fuck you to his country, but in a way it’s worse now than it was the day after. Before, at least, she expected them to rebuild. But it’s been two and a half months, and the place is still just an empty shell.

When he parks the car, he turns toward her, looks so intently at her that she feels like he can see into her soul. “We can do this together,” he says firmly, hopefully. “Any of it. All of it. Just tell me what you want, Carrie.”

She _wants_ people to stop asking her that, she _wants_ a few days alone to actually process this goddamn situation. She opens her mouth to say just that, but she stops herself — because she doesn’t.

She doesn’t want to be alone.

_Fuck._

It might be more than that, even — she doesn’t want to be without him. He’s been so solid, so steadfast, he makes her feel protected. And she is so fucking unworthy of it, but the loss of it — of _him,_ would be unbearable. Just one day was bad enough, and she can’t face it again.

Carrie undoes her seat belt and leans across the console, deciding to be selfish and take what he’s offering. “You, Quinn,” she breathes, and she feels strangely calm as she moves to kiss him.

“Be sure,” he cautions her, mumbling against her mouth.

“I _am,_ ” she says back, and as the kiss deepens, she realizes she means it.

-

They assume an air of professionalism as they make their way into the building. There’s a relaxed silence between them, and Carrie examines it, feeling him deliberately walking a half-step behind her. Literally watching her back as they head up toward Saul’s office.

“Peter,” she hears, and when Quinn stops short, she does too. Dar Adal is just a few steps away, arms crossed imperiously. “And Carrie Mathison.” His eyes slide from Quinn over to Carrie. “How nice to see you both,” he intones, his voice laden with sarcasm.

“Saul called us in,” Quinn says shortly.

“Ah. Saul. I don’t expect he’ll be here much longer, do you?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, he just moves a little closer to Carrie. Quinn tenses, barely, but noticeably — and if she can sense it, she knows, Dar can too. “What are you going to do when you’re no longer on his team?”

“I’ll figure something out,” Quinn answers flatly. Carrie feels uncomfortable, like she’s intruding — even though Dar is looking at her.

“I was speaking to Ms. Mathison,” Dar clarifies, but he shifts his attention to his protégé. “But what about you, Peter? Have you considered my proposal?”

“I have not,” Quinn says.

“They could really use you on the ground, Peter,” Dar continues fervently.

“The answer is no.”

“Saul is waiting,” Carrie interjects, before they can go any further with their alpha-male stare-down.

“Saul’s in the ops room,” Dar tells them, his cold gaze returning to Carrie. “He’s got a _very_ interesting mission for you both.”

“What do you know about it?” Carrie asks.

“Enough,” Dar says briefly.

“Carrie, let’s go,” Quinn says, taking a step back. She turns to follow him, glad to be getting out of Dar’s sight.

“My offer is open,” Dar calls out after them.

Quinn, she notes, does not turn around.

-

“What was that?” she asks, once they’re comfortably out of earshot.

“A mission. He’s not used to hearing the word ‘no.’”

“You’re not even on his team anymore,” Carrie points out. “Or are you?”

Quinn shrugs. “He doesn’t seem to care.” He pauses, suddenly, a few steps before they reach the ops room door, and looks earnestly down at her. “Carrie, I told you. I’m done with that shit.”

“Does he know that?”

“I told him.”

“Okay,” she says.

“Completely,” he promises her, emphatic.

“Okay,” she says again, a quirk of a smile on her lips. She wants to kiss him, but doesn’t. Instead she straightens, squaring her shoulders, preparing for the war she knows they’ll have to wage. “Shall we?”

-

Saul is hunched over a desk when they walk in, examining something on a monitor. He blinks, startled, and immediately taps at the keyboard. “Carrie,” he says. “Peter.” The screens surrounding them go dark.

“What’s going on?” Carrie demands, cutting right to the chase. She’s tired of the subterfuge, tired of the goalposts that keep moving.

“I didn’t expect you so soon,” Saul says. “Have a seat.”

“You said it was urgent,” Quinn points out, dropping down into a chair as Saul rises. Carrie looks from Saul to Quinn and then sulkily follows, crossing her arms across her chest as she sits.

“It’s time sensitive. Lockhart’s confirmation hearing is coming up. We don’t have time to waste.”

“Time for _what_ exactly?” Carrie challenges, narrowing her eyes. “Because last I checked, Saul, Javadi _was_ the play. Full fucking stop.”

“Javadi is still the play,” Saul says gravely. “But we can do more.”

“How?” Carrie asks.

“You know Danesh Akbari.”

“The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard,” Carrie nods, curious in spite of herself, ignoring Quinn’s muttered _for fuck’s sake._ “What about him?”

Saul relaxes at the edge of the desk, a satisfied smile playing at the edge of his lips. “We want him gone.”

“That’s not exactly a new position, Saul,” she points out. “He’s untouchable.”

“That’s just it! He’s not untouchable. Not completely.” His voice is getting louder, but she feels Quinn beside her, absolutely still and radiating with tension. Carrie waits. “All we need is one soldier. One man to get close enough to take the shot.”

“Are you _fucking_ kidding me?” Quinn snaps.

“Absolutely not,” Carrie adds, furious.

“Carrie—” Saul interrupts, but Carrie has already leapt to her feet.

“No, Saul. No. Do you have any idea what I’ve gone through? You threw me to the fucking wolves. I got institutionalized. I got _kidnapped_.”

“And we got Majid Javadi,” Saul retorts matter-of-factly.

“And _now_ you want to send Quinn to kill Danesh Akbari,” Carrie continues, ignoring him. “Why do you even care, Saul? You’re not even going to have a job in a week, and you want to send him on a fucking one-way mission, and for what? Your _legacy?_ ”

“Who do you think you’re talking to, Carrie?” Saul asks, glaring furiously down at her. “Sit down.”

She doesn’t, remains standing, her hands on her hips as she glares right back at her mentor, the man she once respected more than anybody else in the world. “How many people have to die before it’s enough for you?”

“Carrie,” Quinn says, quietly, from behind the desk. Carrie hadn’t even noticed that he’d moved. She blinks up at him, but he’s staring at Saul’s computer screen, transfixed.

Still blazing, Carrie shakes her head and returns her attention to Saul. “Where’s the line, Saul?”

“Carrie,” Quinn repeats more urgently, and a few keystrokes bring the rest of the monitors flashing back to life.

“Quinn’s not going,” Saul says flatly, his face like stone. “Carrie, sit down.”

“Carrie, _look,_ ” Quinn insists at the same time, and Carrie jumps a little when she realizes he’s right behind her now. “Look,” he says again, his hands on her shoulders as he forcibly directs her toward the monitor on the wall.

There’s a man on the screen, his back to the camera, but Carrie would recognize him immediately, anywhere. Then he turns and it’s unmistakable. “Brody,” Carrie whispers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the crazy delay, but talk about the world turning upside down... and going berserk. 
> 
> Thank you thank you THANK YOU to my put-upon editor, Leblanc1, and to my second pair of eyes (she'll get the joke), SNQA. <3 <3 <3
> 
> The good news is, I've got the rest figured out. The bad news is, read the last line again. Sorry.


	14. Chapter 14

_They’d come so close,_ Quinn thinks.

He pushes down the bitterness, the fury, focuses on Carrie instead as she struggles to process what’s happening. He drops his hands from her shoulders but remains standing behind her, so close he can smell her hair.

“No,” she says vehemently, twisting away from the screen to look at Saul. “Brody’s — Brody’s _dead,_  Saul. Brody died. You _told me_  Brody died.” She’s talking too fast, Carrie at her least-controlled. He’s never seen her quite like this before.

“Carrie—” Saul starts, but Carrie shakes her head, points furiously back at the monitor with a trembling hand.

“This isn’t _fucking_ possible.” She looks up at the screen, watches as Brody paces, very much alive, in front of the camera. Her hand goes over her mouth as she steps back. She lands on his foot and she stumbles, nearly falling, but he catches her and steadies her, and when she looks up at him he finds he’s staring into glazed, frantic eyes. It’s only a few seconds before she breaks the connection, resuming her tirade. “How is this possible?”

“Brody wasn’t responsible for the Langley bombing, Carrie,” Saul tells her. Them.

Quinn has never felt so fucking out of place in his life. Carrie is shaking, flinging accusations and questions at Saul that Quinn can’t even hear, he’s so dazed by this situation, focused on her reaction to it. Saul is trying to respond, Peter can see that, but Carrie keeps interrupting. Finally she pulls away from him, moving toward Saul, and Quinn finally comes back to himself a little.

“ _You_ told me, Saul,” she says, her voice going low and quiet. “You fucking told me.” She exhales, a long shuddering breath. “I need some air.”

Quinn steps forward when she does, like he’s her fucking shadow, helpless to let her go. “Alone,” she says, though, “I need a minute alone,” and he’s all about giving her what she _needs_ , so he just nods tightly and backs off.

Carrie leaves, and when the door closes behind her, Quinn rounds furiously on Saul. _"What the fuck, Saul?"_

Saul has retreated to the desk, his face drained of color beneath his beard. He’s taken off his glasses, is rubbing at the lenses with the front of his tie. “He didn’t want her to know,” he says defensively, not looking up.

Quinn leans menacingly over the desk, hands pressed into the surface, his whole body tense as he glares down at the older man. “Really, Saul? That’s what you’re going with?”

Saul puts his glasses on and straightens, returning Quinn’s glare. “She didn’t _need_ to know, Peter. Nicholas Brody was dead. He should’ve stayed dead.”

It’s incredible, the way Saul buys into his own bullshit. Quinn stands, letting out a short, disbelieving laugh.

“Fuck you, Saul,” he flares. Quinn brings his hand viciously down to the surface of the desk, so hard Saul actually jumps a little. He can’t keep his voice down or his anger in check, and he finds himself yelling. “Do you know what it’s been like for her? The hell she put herself through — the hell you _asked_ her to put herself through — because she thought it was her fault! That is un- _fucking-_ acceptable and you know it.”

He’s giving away too much, Quinn knows, he’s never been as patently obvious as he is right now. It’s taking every bit of control he can muster not to fling himself across the desk to kill the Director of the CIA — slowly, painfully, right here within the Agency’s walls.

But it’s Carrie who has inspired this fury in him, and Carrie for whom he struggles to remain calm.

“Fucking incredible,” he says, disgusted. “You don’t even care.”

“Quinn,” he hears, and he lets out a breath when he turns to see her standing at the door. She’s pale — she looks dazed and utterly lost, but it doesn’t look like she’s been crying. _Then again,_ he thinks bitterly, _what would she be crying about? The man she loves is still alive._

“How is this possible?” she asks again, calmer now. Her eyes are back on the monitor — somehow Quinn can’t even pretend to be interested in Brody, he just studies Carrie’s face as she stares, transfixed, at the screen. “You told me he died in the bombing.”

“He was supposed to,” Saul admits. “He was at the memorial service. The bomb was planted in his car.”

Frustrated, Quinn exhales. “We know where the bomb was,” he points out, wishing that Saul would just get to the fucking point.

“Brody left the memorial service,” Saul begins, rewinding to December 12th. “Before the bomb went off.” His voice is a soft monotone. “He was outside when it happened. Didn’t even know it was his car. He hung around for a while. Wanted to help.”

 _Good guy Nick Brody._  Quinn could fucking laugh.

“When the video came out…” Saul sighs, trailing off. “He thought it would be better. For the country. For his family.” He looks sadly up at Carrie. “For you. Everyone assumed he was dead.”

“Fuck,” Carrie says, voice choked, absent-mindedly bringing her hand to her abdomen. For the first time since he’s known her, Quinn can’t read her at all. She’s looking intently at the screen, eyes wide, obviously processing. But there’s no visible emotion on her face.

“He remained an Agency asset, Carrie,” Saul confesses finally. “Off the books. He didn’t want to involve you. I…  tried to keep you out of it.”

Her chin starts to quiver now, and Quinn knows, in this moment, that he is irreversibly fucked. It’s not a revelation, of course, but there’s a twist in his gut at the sudden, inevitable certainty.

Nicholas Brody is alive. He’s at least as innocent as Quinn himself is — Brody’s hands might even be less red than his own.

“Why’d he leave the memorial?” Quinn challenges sharply.

Saul glances up, surprised, like he’d even forgotten that Quinn was there. Like he hadn’t goddamn demanded his presence at this fucking meeting. “That’s classified,” he says, and in that moment Quinn _knows._

“We’re all friends here,” Quinn replies, infusing his tone with all the dry sarcasm he can. Saul knows that Brody killed Walden, that he did it for Carrie — whatever his fucked up master plan, Saul would never have let Brody go if he believed him responsible for the attack on the CIA. 

Quinn has never faulted Brody for Walden’s death; he would have done the same in his place. But if Brody left the memorial service, it’s because he was too weak to face his actions in the company of people mourning their Vice President. Their colleague. Their family. Their friend.

He was serendipitously spared by his own cowardice, and it tarnishes whatever innocence is presumed.

In the silence, Quinn and Saul understand each other, but there is no friendliness in their shared look.

“Brody’s in Iran,” he concludes, attention back to Carrie. " _He_ can get to Akbari.”

Carrie finally tears her gaze away from the screen, although her eyes flit sporadically between the men in the room and her ex-lover in Iran. “ _What?”_ she asks, disbelieving.

“A few days ago, Brody stopped cooperating,” Saul admits, deflating a little.

“Who could’ve seen _that_ coming?” Quinn snipes, but neither Carrie nor Saul acknowledges him.

“That’s it, Carrie. That’s the play. But we can’t do it without you anymore.” Saul lets out a breath and looks imploringly at Carrie. “As far as we’re concerned, he broke the agreement first.”

“ _Absolutely not!”_ Quinn roars, echoing Carrie’s earlier outburst. She jumps, startled. “Carrie, you cannot go to _fucking_ Iran.”

He grabs for her arm and pulls her back, forcing her to look at him. “Quinn,” she says, pressing her lips together.

“No. Carrie, you don’t have to do this.” But she does, and he knows it. She will. And short of absconding with her and holding her hostage until all this shit gets resolved one way or another, he knows there’s no way to stop her.

But whatever happens, he’s going to lose her. And fuck him to hell and back, but he loves her. _"Think_ about this, Carrie,” he urges her.

“You know I have to do this,” she says softly, cocking her head minutely toward Saul. “You know _why_ I have to do this.”

“He left you, Carrie,” he tries, pushing. But it’s the wrong thing to say, because her eyes fill up with tears.

“Brody is a threat to national security,” Saul interrupts loudly. Carrie’s head jerks up and she pulls out of Quinn’s grip. “If he doesn’t complete his task, we will have no choice but to terminate the assignment.”

There’s no question of his meaning. Quinn raises his hands in defeat, surrender, as he looks from Carrie to Saul. “Fuck me,” he mutters. He slumps bonelessly back into his chair and gives himself a moment to recenter himself, eyes closed. He looks back up after a few seconds, dragging his hand resignedly through his hair. “When do we leave?”

-

There’s another argument, because, astonishingly, Quinn’s presence is required at Langley. He finds himself literally gaping in disbelief as Saul goes over the plan, which involves Carrie going to Iran alone. “You’ll run the operation from here,” Saul explains. “You’ll get her home safely.”

Carrie sits, dazed, through the whole conversation. “Anybody could run the operation from here, Saul,” Quinn points out.

“The fewer people who know about this operation, the better.”

“Talk to Adal,” Quinn suggests, a little flippant. “He’ll send you a guy. But I’m going with her.”

“Carrie is more than capable.”

“That’s not the fucking point.”

Abruptly, Carrie settles it. “I want him to come.”

Certain he misheard her, Quinn opens his mouth to argue — but when she says it again, his entire body relaxes.

“Give us a minute,” Saul orders Quinn.

“Fine.”

-

“Having second thoughts about that mission, Peter?” Dar slithers into view mere seconds after the ops room door has closed.

Quinn doesn’t comment on the fact that Dar’s clearly been hovering, waiting for him to emerge. It doesn’t interest him.

“As soon as I get back from Iran,” he says clearly, slowly, letting his words sink in, “I’m out.”

“You’ve said that before,” Dar replies, wry. “Never quite sticks, does it?”

He can’t really fault Dar for the point. He can’t argue. He just shrugs and says, “yeah, well, we’ll see.”

“Won’t we, though?”

He gives Dar a hard look before he turns on his heel and walks away.

-

Standing in the courtyard, under the shadow of Kryptos, Quinn lights a cigarette and tries to sort out his thoughts.

As if his life weren’t already fucked up enough. He wishes, not for the first time, that he’d just taken that fucking shot when he’d had Brody in his sights, put the asshole out of his goddamn misery before he could do any more damage. But he flashes back to that night, after the attack, Carrie’s soft words: “ _At_ _least this way I’m not losing you, too.”_

There’s no fucking winning here. There never was.

The irony is laughable. The one fucking shot he didn’t take.

Movement at the edge of his line of vision causes him to look up, startled. Carrie’s approaching, looking wary. He flicks the cigarette away.

“Thought I might find you out here.”

Quinn looks down at her, searching. “When do we leave?”

“As soon as possible. Tonight, maybe. Tomorrow at the latest. There’s… you need documents, a passport.”

“Right.”

“Quinn, this doesn’t... “ She takes a deep breath. “I just… I couldn’t live with myself. I need to _try_.”

He squelches the small sliver of hope that is threatening to rise in his chest as he closes his eyes, remembering the way she looked at Brody. Until the very end. She’d loved him. She’d wanted to build a life with him. “I know, Carrie.”

“Quinn…” She can’t hold his gaze, and looks to the side, unspoken words playing over her features before her eyes return to his. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Carrie. I get it. No one saw this coming.” It’s his defeat; he knows they both hear it.

“Quinn, it’s not like that. I don’t know. It’s not that I don’t— _fuck,”_ she concludes, dragging a hand through her hair _._ “There’s nothing I can say to make this right.”

“No, there’s not.” He knows it’s an admission, sees the recognition on her face.

Brody is half a world away, still infinitely closer than he ever could have imagined. Residual guilt and betrayal must be warring in her soul, but Brody is nonetheless worming his way back into her mind, into her fucking heart. _So that’s it,_ he thinks, gazing into the regret in her eyes.

“Do you want to give me the mission parameters?” He reverts to what he knows. He can do that. He will keep her alive, and he will let her go. _Jesus fucking Christ._

“We’re going to Switzerland. Iran from there, and… I don’t know, Quinn, come back inside. Saul will brief us.”

-

He drops her off and then goes back to his place to pack. He empties out the bag he’d packed to bring to her place and replaces almost all of it with mission-appropriate gear.

Of course, it’s a different kind of mission this time. No self-extraction, no scrounging for warmth under the desert stars.

He zips his bag.

After a moment of consideration, Quinn grimly retrieves his weapons. He can’t take them with him — not under the civilian guise he’ll be adopting. But this space isn’t secure any longer, and he doesn’t know how long they’ll be gone. He won’t be coming back here, anyway.

So he collects it all, everything in his place that remotely matters to him — and he piles it all into his car. There isn’t much; it’s the remnants of a relatively spartan life, and it won’t take up much room in his storage unit.

Quinn drops off the keys and drives to deposit his belongings. One or two more stops, to finish his preparations, and he goes back to her.

-

He still has her keys, though, and he uses them to let himself into her apartment for what will be the last time.

Carrie’s in her robe, fresh out of the shower. Her hair is still wet, but it’s noticeably darker. She looks up from her laptop. “Bonjour, Pierre.”

Quinn blinks. “What?”

“Pierre Bezieux. We’re flying into Geneva. How’s your French, Quinn?”

“Uh, nonexistent. There’s not much need for Black Ops in Paris, Carrie.”

“We’re going to Switzerland.”

“Wherever.”

“Right,” she says, shrugging. “So I’ll do the talking. Not ideal, but… it’s not the _most_ airtight cover, but it’s short notice.”

He’s done more with less. He nods. “When do we leave?”

“Tonight. Our flight leaves at eight. We should be at the airport by six.”

“We’re flying commercial?” he asks, surprised.

“Saul’s trying to keep this off the Company’s radar.” Carrie shuts her laptop and stands. “I got him to spring for first class, though.”

Quinn laughs, he can’t help it. The situation is so fucking bizarre — they’re going on an absurd quest to save Nicholas Brody, of all people, or to at least get him to complete his task. Quinn is following the woman he loves to the man _she_ loves. But hey, at least he’ll be comfortable on the ride.

-

Their passports match, Pierre et Caroline Bezieux. There are stamps on the pages — the United States is the most recent, two weeks old, but it’s one of many. Pierre and Caroline are well-traveled, and they travel together.

-

Carrie dries her hair. It’s coppery brown, it turns out. It makes her eyes look bigger, brings out the green. “What?” she asks, putting on her earrings, a small diamond stud in each lobe. She frowns, looking worried. " _What_?”

“Nothing. I like it.”

There’s a twitch at the corner of her mouth. “I’m not a fan.”

“You’re beautiful, Carrie,” he says, allowing himself these last few hours of honesty. As soon as the plane takes off, he thinks, it’s over. “Come here.”

“ _Quinn_ ,” she says, utterly misreading him. He walks over to her instead, digging in his pocket. She looks up at him, waiting. Without taking his eyes off hers, he reaches out for her left hand, slides two rings carefully onto her fourth finger.

“I’m not letting you out of my sight,” he promises quietly, flashing his own ring. He kisses her lightly on the forehead. “Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG thank you to Leblanc1, I would be lost without you.


	15. Chapter 15

Hours go by.

They’re moving, but not; together, but separate. Carrie second-guesses herself, the plan — the _travel arrangements_ , in any case, that for all their luxury keep him at arm’s length. He knocks back an Ambien as soon as the plane has leveled off, and promptly drifts off into a deeper sleep than he usually allows himself. She doesn’t often get to see Quinn at rest, his features relaxed and soft, and she regards him in the muted cabin light. Letting his guard down. _Is he feeling safe_ , she wonders — and then immediately discounts it, _or is he just resting up for this bullshit mission to save a man he hates? For her?_

She’s glad he’s sleeping. She can’t.

Carrie slips on her eye-mask and reclines her seat anyway. She curls up, pulling her feet to the side, settling back against the soft leather cushion while she thinks.

 _Brody_. She’d never gotten to mourn him — had never _allowed_ herself to mourn him, actually, too horrified by the guilt and the weight of what she’d thought he’d done. This brutal reversal has left her reeling. _What now?_

It’s a Herculean effort to re-frame all she thought she knew about him with everything she now knows. His lies, her hopes. Saul’s rage when he’d found her considering a life with Brody; no doubt that had contributed to his willingness to keep Brody’s secret, to let her believe he had died.

If she’d known, she would have thrown her whole heart into clearing his name. Into bringing him home. To her. _To us_ , she considers, remembering the ultrasound, the pregnancy tests.

But she didn’t, and she hasn’t given herself the opportunity to miss him. The night he’d ostensibly died, she’d climbed into Quinn’s arms and she hadn’t left. He’s been by her side. In her bed. And he’s here even now, so close she can touch him, matching white gold rings binding them to one another temporarily, for propriety’s sake.

It could have been real. She twists the diamond ring around her finger.

But Brody’s _alive_. Nobody could have seen that coming — and she’d loved him, right? So fucking much she’d been prepared to leave her entire life behind for him, would have given anything — _everything_ to be with him. Their broken pieces fit together so well that, together, they’d almost made one complete person.

She had never felt safe with him. She had never trusted him. But they’d been connected to one another, molecularly, eternally. Her love for Brody was just… _beyond_ , and then…

Fuck.

It had been so easy to hate him. So easy to attribute the devastation to him and to use it to let go. He’d worn the vest, after all. He’d made the video. He’d lied to her face so many times — so this was just another one, she’d thought, another fucking lie before he played himself out.

And a few hours later, she’d found comfort with another man.

And what _is_ that, she wonders, her relationship with Quinn? Her feelings for him are more muted, less intense. She’s never really considered them too closely — he’s just been _here_ , and hot, and willing. He’s had her back and he’s had her, and Carrie never once stopped to think about what any of it meant.

 _What the fuck do you want, Mathison?_ she asks herself, and for the first time in a while, she doesn’t know.

Eight hours ago she was ready to leave the CIA with Quinn, to start a life and a family.

Eight hours before Langley had exploded, she’d been ready to leave the CIA for Brody, to start a life with him.

She has to see him again. At least once. To say goodbye, or… Carrie rests her palm on her abdomen, tries to feel the life she knows is inside of her. “I’m so fucking sorry,” she murmurs, and she pulls her knees in close, and she tries to sleep.

-

But she doesn’t, and it’s still too many hours before they arrive in Tehran.

-

They spend some time in the Geneva Airport before they take off for Istanbul, a little more than halfway to their final destination. Customs at Ataturk is a bit of a challenge, but what Quinn lacks in French he makes up for in Turkish, and Carrie barely needs to speak, she just lets him take the lead as he slides their passports across the counter.

“When do we leave for Tehran?” she asks him.

“A few hours. C’mon, let’s go through security and you can nap in the lounge.”

-

She doesn’t actually get any rest until they’re checked into the Espinas Hotel in Tehran. Every time she closes her eyes — on the planes, in the waiting areas, the airport hotel Quinn had found tucked just beneath the concourse at Ataturk — her thoughts just start _racing_.

But in Tehran, it’s her turn. Quinn stands just behind her, silent, as she deals with the concierge. He hands over his credit card when she gestures for it, and he signs the slip with a messy scribble that vaguely resembles his alias. “Merci,” he mutters when the clerk slides the key cards across the desk, and Carrie smiles up at him as he takes the handle of her suitcase.

“Carrie, you need to sleep,” he says, as soon as the door of their room closes behind them.

“I’ve been _trying_.” She’s honestly so exhausted she could cry, but her brain won’t _stop_ , she’s so worn out and restless and still trying to reconcile everything — and they haven’t _talked._  What is there to say? They can’t discuss the mission, the baby, _Brody_. She can’t tell him what it means to her that he’s here, that he’s been here.

“We can’t do anything until tomorrow,” he reminds her. Tomorrow they’ll go to Fara’s uncle’s house; there will be a dossier, maps, contacts. Phones for them both. But tonight it’s just the two of them, really alone for the first time in a while. Quinn draws the curtains and, in deference to his natural paranoia, quickly sweeps the room for bugs as Carrie collapses sideways onto the king-sized bed.

She closes her eyes, listening to his movements around the room for a little while before she pushes herself up to her elbows, resigned, and sighs, “I need a shower.”

Quinn’s working his way through the bathroom when he calls back, “Take a bath. You need to relax.”

“I think I’d fall asleep in the tub.”

“I won’t let you drown,” he promises, looking back at her from the doorway. “C’mon.”

When she nods, Quinn disappears back into the bathroom and she can hear the water start to run. Carrie unzips her boots and kicks them off before following him in.

She’s surprised by the luxury of it, the huge sunken bathtub, the marble and chrome shining. Quinn’s perched on the edge of the tub, his hand beneath the faucet testing the temperature of the water. “How do you like it?” he asks.

Carrie raises her eyebrows and reaches down to tug at the hem of her shirt. “Hot.” He smiles a little at that, obligingly nudging the the tap to the left as she starts to slip out of her clothes. “You gonna join me?”

His face darkens just enough to make her second-guess herself; his eyes don’t leave hers. “Carrie…”

She’s still half-dressed, but she’s never felt more exposed. Confused, too. Two entire days and six thousand miles, and she still doesn’t know where they stand — if the life she’d been ready to build is over before it had even gotten a chance to really begin. “Do you still mean it?” she asks, wary, crossing her arms defensively over her chest.

“Carrie, just…” He exhales, looking away. “Make sure it’s not too hot,” he says, and rises. “I’ll be right outside.”

It’s not an answer. It’s not even close, and Carrie feels tears springing into her eyes as he walks out, shutting the door behind him.

 _He has to have been thinking about it,_ she considers, scooping her hair off her neck and into a loose ponytail. It’s all she’s been able to think about — Quinn, Brody, Quinn. _Quinn_.

Carrie finishes undressing and she tests the water, which is about as hot as she can stand, and turns off the faucet. She waits for a second, still half-expecting Quinn to come in to join her, but he doesn’t, and she steps carefully into the tub and sinks down into the water.

 _God_. She’s in fucking Tehran — she’d never expected to come here again. Quinn’s been opaque since they left DC, reticent to a new extreme despite their matching rings. Carrie examines hers — a white gold band, a brilliant diamond solitaire. She wonders how he got her ring size so precisely.

The heat is sinking into her bones as she sighs, letting her head fall back, lolling against the porcelain lip of the tub. Her hand slips beneath the water as her eyes drift closed, fingers gliding down her torso to rest between her thighs. For the first time in forever she lets herself think of Brody, the intensity he’d brought to everything, so different from—

 _No._ She won’t let her mind drift, not to a man who’s followed her out of some bullshit chivalrous intent, whose savior complex and fucking _guilt_ led him to propose an entire life apart from the bullshit government machine they’d sold their souls to.  
  
She concentrates on Brody’s crooked smile, the way he’d kissed her in the clearing. The feeling of his scars under her fingertips, his mouth on her throat, Brody pressed up against her, inside of her, surrounding her — Carrie swallows, tries not to moan out loud as her hips jerk forward. Her eyes flutter open as she comes with a breathy sigh, and she catches the glint of the diamond sparkling on her hand.

“ _Fuck_ ,” she mutters as she returns to herself, the back of her head clunking against the the tub. The water ripples around her. _Fuck_. She opens the drain and stands up, turning on the shower so that she can smear the hotel-provided soap on her skin, reaching between her legs to scrape at her thighs.

Carrie’s eyes fill with tears as she stares right up into the spray. She tries to picture Brody again, envisions him striding back and forth in the adjacent hotel room, imagines that he’s waiting for her and wonders if that’s even what she wants. She inhales sharply, gasping as she turns off the shower and sits down on the side of the bathtub.

Her palms grip the porcelain as her head falls to her knees, struggling to center herself, to control her breathing. All at once there’s a knock on the door.

“Carrie?” she hears, his voice quiet, and Carrie struggles to contain a strangled sob — converts it into a sharp cough, shoulders shaking, as she hears the door crack open behind her. “Carrie,” she hears again, but she doesn’t look up until she feels a towel being draped across her back.

She tugs at the edges of the fabric, pulls the towel around her fully and tucks the corner to secure it as he sits on the tub’s edge beside her. “Quinn, what the fuck?”

He doesn’t reply; his hand creeps up the side of her cheek and tangles into her hair as he leans to kiss her. It’s less gentle than she’s used to, intense and controlling as he bites at her bottom lip. Carrie gasps at the sharpness of his teeth, mouth opening wide to let him in.

Quinn’s arm circles her waist, clutching her over the terrycloth as he rises, pulling her with him. Carrie twists into his body as she stands, using him for support as she steps out of the tub. Her fingers immediately twist into the fabric of his shirt, fumbling with the buttons — she can’t help but wonder why he’s still dressed if he’s coming after her this way, draping her in a towel just to let it fall damply to the ground.

Drops of water still cling to the tops of her arms, her calves, beneath her breasts. He pulls the elastic from her hair, letting the brown strands fall around her neck as she pushes his shirt off of his shoulders. She can feel his erection pressing against her and she arches into it, prompting a sharp inhale from Quinn — the first chink in his infuriating armor.

She can feel his fingertips pressing hard into her skin as he backs her into the hotel room, breaking the kiss only when he pushes her onto the bed. “Quinn—” she starts, but he silences her with a sharp look.

Carrie reaches for his waistband, breathing a little harder than the situation merits, but Quinn looks frankly dangerous looming over her and she concentrates on her hands, unthreading his belt from the loops. She’s never been afraid of him but suddenly — somehow, here and now, she feels trapped.

She pushes his pants and boxers over his hips, slides them over his legs. He kicks them fluidly off, and Carrie extends her hand to circle his dick, feels it twitch under her palm. Without looking at him, she drops to her knees at his feet, hears the “ _fuck me_ ” he emits.

“Sit down,” she orders him softly, underscoring her point by dragging her tongue along the length of him. But she thinks he knows what she’s doing, because despite his groan, he bends to haul her up by the elbows.

“Do _not_ ,” he growls when their eyes meet. His pupils are dark as he regards her. “Do not fuck with me, Carrie.”

Frustrated, she tries unsuccessfully to pull her arms out of his grip. “Quinn—”

“Ask me again,” he demands, his voice low as he holds her in place.

“It’s okay if you don’t,” she continues, though. “I _understand_ if—”

Quinn releases her abruptly and she loses her balance, tripping backward onto the bed. “You don’t understand a goddamn thing, Carrie,” he mutters, and she slides cautiously back to the pillow as he moves over her, predatory. “Close your eyes.”

“I don’t want to.” She holds his gaze for a long time, searching his face for some idea of what he’s thinking, what he wants. Memorizing every line and every plane in case it’s the last time. She would stay here forever if she could, freeze the moment — but it’s his eyes that are like ice. “Quinn, will you just _talk_ to me?"

“Fine,” he says brusquely, but before Carrie can even speak he’s got her flipped, face down on the mattress, the inverse of how he usually prefers her. “Don’t close your eyes,” he mutters, bent forward so she can feel his breath on her ear.

Carrie’s heart is pounding. He’s backed off, but when she tries to push herself up, she feels his hand pressed between her shoulder blades. With a careful inhale she settles down, face turned to the side on the pillow, body flat as Quinn rocks back and begins to touch her.

His hands slide lightly down her spine, thumbs touching with his wide palms splayed side-by-side. He skims the length of her body, fingers curling around her thighs, her calves, and then back. Her breaths come quick and shallow as his hands separate, one flat on the small of her back as the other nudges her legs apart.

" _Quinn_ ,” she breathes, as she follows his lead, spreading her thighs. She’s so wet already, so fucking obvious. One finger slides against her slick skin; when he grazes her clit she jumps, emitting a sharp little gasp, still sensitive from her orgasm in the bathtub.

And he knows her body too well now to not notice. He knows every sound she makes, every inch of her. But he doesn’t say anything — he hasn’t said much, she thinks, a little frantic, and she’s glad for it. But she grinds into his hand, despite her limited range of motion beneath him, and he stills. He lets her move, allows her to mindlessly rock back and forth on his curved fingers as her own hands grip at the comforter. And she’s just about _there_ , at the edge, about to come when he abruptly pulls his hand away.

“Quinn,” she complains, slumping on the mattress.

She feels him brushing her hair to the side, away from her face, as he sinks down over her, covering her entire body with his own. “Yeah?” He nips gently at her earlobe.

“Quinn, I…” she doesn’t know how to finish her sentence, she’s tense and at his mercy. Desperate to feel him inside of her, to feel something apart from this aching confusion, to feel wanted by this man who has been with her every step of the way. _I love you_ , she almost says, but how can she? He won’t even look at her.

“Please fuck me,” she finally says, and she wonders if he can hear the tears in her throat when she asks.

He remains completely silent when he brings his hands to the hinge of her hips, pulling her to her knees. She’s gotten with the program now, so she doesn’t try to look back at him, just settles on her elbows and lets herself feel.

Carrie lets out a low moan when Quinn pushes inside her, gentle at first but so deep her fingernails curl into the soft flesh of her hands. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t make a sound except the deep exhale she’s learned to anticipate when he first drives into her body and gives her a courteous moment, always, to adjust to the intrusion.

Her teeth push into her bottom lip as he begins to thrust, hard but slow, every inch of him solid and hot. She cries out his name in a cracked voice, feels herself throbbing around him as his hands squeeze so hard into her hips that she knows she’ll wear his fingerprints. She contracts deliberately around him and his grip intensifies as he stops; she does it again, and she hears his expletive-laden groan.

His arm curls around her when she relaxes, his fingers seeking out her clit as he fucks her, possessive and fervent. She loses track of everything but his name, his dick, the feel of his hands on her body. He’s saying something but she can’t hear it — she comes, suddenly, shuddering, with Quinn as deep inside her as possible. Quinn’s hips still as she pulses around him, waiting her out in his typical controlled way.

When Quinn resumes, he’s not so slow, not so careful. It’s intense bordering on painful, but she likes it, the force of him, the sounds he’s making as he drives into her. When he comes, when she feels the surging heat of him spilling inside of her, she moans louder than he does.

The world is swimming around her as she falls fully onto the bed, Quinn with her, his mouth on her shoulder as he pulls out and shifts his weight to the mattress beside her. Carrie takes the opportunity to turn toward him, tilting her face up to kiss the curve of his jaw.  “Quinn,” she says again, trying, breathless. “Fuck, Quinn, I—”

“Carrie,” he exhales. He slips out of her grip and moves from the bed to drag back the comforter on his side. Carrie pulls her knees up and shifts to slide beneath the sheets.

It’s a king-sized bed but but she stays purposefully in his space. Quinn looks at her for a long moment before he follows, close to her by default. It’s a long moment before he opens his arms to her, letting her rest against him. “Sleep.”

-

He makes her come once more before the sun rises, fingers inside her, his lips pressed into her temple as he keeps her pulled close, and as Carrie drifts back to sleep, her head tucked into his shoulder, she feels him whisper something into her hair.

-

The morning brings new challenges, wistful looks at Quinn when he isn’t looking at her. She’s so fucking twisted up inside — she loves him, she thinks, she still wants him. She still wants the life he’d proposed, the life he’d wanted to build with her. This kid — it would have been _theirs_ , it could have been, but now?

What now?

And if she loves Quinn, if she truly loves him, then what does that mean for Brody? Has she really gone her whole life, almost thirty-four years, without ever falling in love — just to fall in love twice with two different men? How can she possibly know what love feels like, truly, if she can transfer it from Brody to Quinn just like _that_?

Quinn deserves better. He definitely knows better. Didn’t his refusal to answer the question just say it all?

-

And then, of course, there’s Brody.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had very much intended for this chapter to move the story forward more, but it is what it is. Thank you, Leblanc1, as always!!


	16. Chapter 16

She sees him, for the first time in three months, from across a dusty courtyard. Her mouth opens at the sight of him, silhouetted against the clay walls of the mosque. Carrie can’t hold back her slight gasp of surprise — after everything that had happened, she realizes, she still hadn’t believed it. She still _doesn’t_.

“Fuck,” she mutters. She knows Quinn is listening, somewhere behind her, close but hidden. Their communication is strictly one-way; he can hear her, every word she says, but all she can do is trust that he’s nearby, watching her back. He’s armed. She isn’t.

In the darkness of her mind, Carrie wonders if Quinn’s been given additional orders; if Brody might yet die at his hand.

_No. He won’t. She knows him._

Brody looks different, though, gaunt and pale, his hair cropped so close she can barely see the red of it. He looks almost broken, slouched, like he’s bearing a heavy weight.

It makes her heart ache, all the wasted potential. Brody has lost something that even eight years under Abu Nazir’s control hadn’t taken from him. Carrie swallows, hard.

Movement in the periphery of her vision catches her attention. Masud Sherazi, the man who has reluctantly become their only asset in this city, their only ally on this fucked up mission. He’s approaching Brody, a little cautiously — and he stumbles.

Brody catches him — his reflexes are still sharp, Carrie notes — and guides Masud back to his feet. They exchange words. “He did it,” Carrie says quietly, upon Masud’s signal.

She nods back to Masud and fidgets with the cell phone she’s holding. Brody is so close, right _there_ , but still unaware. It’s her last chance to abort the mission, to go home, to allow Brody to continue obliviously down the path he’d chosen.

For her, too, to return to the life _she’d_ chosen.  

But she can’t, she can’t stop looking at him, could never live with herself. He’s moving further and further away. She glances around her, a futile attempt to find Quinn, and then she exhales. Her hand is trembling. _This is it_ , she thinks, and then she says, “okay.”

She presses the button. Hears the ringing on the line.

Carrie can pinpoint the instant when Brody realizes what’s happening, because he stops short and looks nervously around him, eyes darting everywhere but at her. He finds the phone. “Who is this?” he asks gruffly, in a voice she barely recognizes.

“Brody, it’s me,” she says urgently. “Don’t hang up.”

He doesn’t say anything back at first, but his head jerks up in recognition, surprise, shock — she doesn’t know, but he begins to scan the area more carefully. “Brody, please. I need to talk to you. It’s important.”

His eyes alight on her face and she feels her breath catch. “Please,” she says again.

He is looking right at her when he says, dangerously quiet, “Nicholas Brody is dead.”

“ _No_ , I—please, Brody, don’t hang up. I need you to hear me out, I need to—I need to see you. It’s important.”

At this distance, she can’t tell if he’s softening, but he hasn’t trashed the phone yet, so she thinks he must be considering it. She can see his hand clenching and and unclenching at his side. “I’m going to text you an address, Brody. Come.”

“Carrie, I can’t,” he says finally.

“I thought you were _dead_ ,” she pushes. “As soon as I found out you weren’t… and I came so _far_ , Brody. For you.”

Carrie takes a step forward. Just one, and Brody balks, viciously snaps the phone closed, and the line goes dead. “Fuck,” she huffs, but she keeps watching him, waiting to see what he does next. If he’ll break the phone in half, or drop it, if he’ll somehow tell her wordlessly to fuck off and in doing so, set her free.

But he slips the phone into his pocket instead. She lets out a breath, looks away, nodding to herself as she taps an address into a text message.

When she looks up, he’s gone.

-

“Good job,” Quinn says, briefly, when they meet back at the Sherazi house to regroup.

Carrie whips her scarf off her head and stuffs it into her bag. “You think? Because I don’t fucking know.” It’s his reassurance that gives her the freedom to question it; she looks up at him, exasperated.

“Relax,” he cautions her.

She scoffs. “That’s likely.”

“Sit down, then.”

Carrie obeys — she’s exhausted, and she knows it’s more than lack of sleep, or the time change. She’s fucking _pregnant_. She has to actively, constantly remind herself; she needs to remember the picture on the screen. _Twelve weeks_ , she thinks for the thousandth time. “Do you think he’ll come?”

“You’re asking _me_? Christ, Carrie. What do _you_ think?”

“I don’t know,” she admits. Every time she ever thought she understood him, that she knew who he was, he surprised her. She looks down at her hands. “I wish I did.”

With an exhale, Quinn sinks down to the sofa beside her. “It’ll work out,” he promises. “Do you want me to stay?”

Carrie wants to say yes. She knows he wants to be here, too. But she turns to him a little sadly, points out the obvious: “Brody _hates_ you, Quinn.”

“Feeling’s mutual,” he mutters; Carrie ignores it, isn’t especially interested in this dick measuring contest, at least not from Quinn. He doesn’t want to talk to her, he’ll fuck her but he won’t look at her, he’ll follow her across the planet to save a man he despises — she’s pretty sure he loves her, but god forbid he actually tell her that.

But they don’t have time for that right now, so she just says, “You’ll stay close?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Carrie says, nodding to herself. “Quinn, I—”

She’s interrupted by Masud’s entrance, a tray of tea and pastries in hand, and she’s grateful for it. She’s grateful to him in general, for his help and for his home; he’s a dissident, she knows that, but he’d made it abundantly clear from the beginning that he didn’t have much use for America, either.

“I should go.” Quinn rises, before he can be offered anything. “Stay in sight,” he tells her, and then he’s gone.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Masud asks.

Carrie shakes her head. “No. You’ve already done too much.”

“Take all the time you need, then,” he offers graciously, crossing the room to pick his jacket up and slip it on. She can’t believe he’s leaving her alone in the house — can’t believe any of this, really, but when she questions it he just shrugs. “My niece asked for my help. She trusts you.”

It’s amazing that in his world, that’s enough.

-

She’s never been a particularly patient person. By herself, she fidgets. She drinks her tea, she picks at a bunch of grapes. She looks out the window and can’t see Quinn. There’s no movement outside, actually, and it all feels too quiet. Futile, almost.

Carrie wishes the fucking comm went both ways. She wishes she could hear him; it’s all one-sided. He can see her, can hear her — and she just has to fucking trust that he’s out there, watching her back. And she _does,_ she’s just — alone.

And she is so fucking tired of it.

“Christ, Quinn,” she sighs, slumping into the sofa, resting her head on the arm of it. “I wish you could talk to me. Or that you _would_.” She hates this. She doesn’t even know if Brody’s coming; she’s damned if he does, he’s damned if he doesn’t. “Fuck.”

She wonders, if she asks him to come back inside, if he will.

But she knows the answer to that, so she doesn’t. “You know,” Carrie continues, sitting up and examining the plate of fruit, “all that produce is gonna go bad. It’ll be all… _wilted_ when we go back. I told you we didn’t need a pound of spinach, Quinn.”

Carrie pops a slice of orange into her mouth and gazes at the window again. “You’re just gonna drag me back to Whole Foods.”

Thirty seconds later, Carrie’s phone buzzes. She picks it up eagerly and flips it open.

It’s a text from Quinn, it says: _NB approaching side door. Alone. Stay in sight._

“Fuck you, too,” she mutters, just loud enough for the microphone to pick up.

-

Moments later, the frantic sound of knuckles rapping against the door. Carrie tosses her phone back onto the table — it clatters — and gets up to answer it.

She peeks out the side window. He’s there, looking nervous, twitchy. She’d forgotten — she remembers how he used to be, now, all that anxious energy thrumming beneath his skin. “Brody,” she breathes, opening the door to let him in.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Carrie?” he asks before she can even close it behind him, his fists opening and closing, the question asked through gritted teeth.

“Come on,” is all she says, glancing away, ducking her head as she walks back into the parlor, not wanting him to see the tears that have begun to well up. She discreetly wipes at her cheeks and takes a deep breath to center herself, swallows to push down the lump in her throat.

Seeing him this morning, from a distance — that hadn’t done it, it hadn’t been enough. It hadn’t convinced her, not really, hadn’t prepared her for the reality of this. Of _him._ He’s fucking alive and she doesn’t know how to feel.

“Sit,” she tells him, finally steeling herself to look him in the eye. “I can’t believe you’re really…” she trails off. Here? Alive? Looking at her like she’s the one who fucked up?

“What are you doing here, Carrie?” he asks again, still standing, his eyes flitting around the room, looking for a trap in this closed, unfamiliar space.

“Saul sent me,” she explains, looking for an inroad. “He told me about your mission.”

Brody lets out a shaky exhale and finally sits on the sofa, running his hand over his scalp as his elbows press into his thighs. “There’s no fucking mission, Carrie. They won’t let me anywhere near Akbari.”

“Saul disagrees.”

His eyes flash angrily as he tips his head back to glare at her. “I’m here to _help_ ,” she pushes, dropping down to the cushion beside him, leaving space between them. Not touching.

“Carrie, it’s over. Go home.”

“I _can’t_ ,” she snaps, louder than she means to. “God, what is _wrong_ with you? What do you think will happen?”

Brody slowly straightens, shoulders squaring as he turns to look at her — and Carrie realizes, that’s it. That’s what’s been off this whole time. The sharp military posture, such an indelible part of him; that’s what’s missing. “I’ve been a dead man for a long time, Carrie,” he says slowly, finally still.

“Fuck you, Brody,” she says, jumping to her feet, too angry to be that close to him, to look at him. “Up until three days ago, I thought you _were_ dead. Do you have any idea what that did to me? Do you even care?”

“Well, you moved on pretty quickly,” Brody says, his voice remarkably even.

Carrie whirls back toward him. “Excuse me?”

“The ring, Carrie.” He taps his left hand.

She looks down in surprise, like she’d forgotten. She twists the diamond nervously around her finger, watches it disappear into her palm. She flexes her hand and feels the stone bite into her skin. “It’s part of my cover,” she explains, not sure why she feels like she’s apologizing. She readjusts the ring to its original position, and the facets catch the sunlight streaming through the window. “Quinn came with me, we thought—”

“ _Peter_ Quinn?” Brody asks, incredulous, blinking from her hand to her face. “Why the fuck would _he—”_

“I asked him to,” Carrie informs him, crossing her arms. Her left hand rests on top, curled around her right bicep.

“He stabbed me in the _fucking_ hand, Carrie!”

She remembers. She can see the scar. “Yeah,” she huffs, still closed off to him. She shrugs. “Well, he was _supposed_ to kill you.” She closes her eyes for a long moment, attempting to recenter herself, to regain some traction in this conversation. “This isn’t about Quinn, Brody, I’m — _we’re_ here to help. You. To help you get out of this fucking mess.”

When she opens her eyes, she sees him looking right at her, scrutinizing. His jaw is clenched when he says, tightly, “just a cover, huh?”

Carrie doesn’t know if she’s imagining it or if he really _does_ sound as accusatory as she thinks he does. If he really believes it’s his business who she’s fucking, if he honestly thinks he has a right to care if it’s Quinn.

In her head, she counts to five. “I thought you were _dead_ ,” she finally points out calmly. “That’s what you _wanted_ me to think, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“That’s not a no,” he notes, and Carrie wonders how the fuck she’s the one getting cornered in this. Why he’s acting like she’s the one who betrayed _him_.

She lifts her chin. “It’s not a no,” she confirms. “And I don’t think it matters much to _him_ if you make it out of this, Brody, so maybe you could show a little bit of fucking gratitude.”

Actually, she _knows_ Quinn couldn’t give a fuck less about Nicholas Brody. This part of the mission — it’s all her. Quinn’s objective is compatible, but his own.

“Well, that makes two of us,” he mutters.

“Well, I’m pregnant.”

Carrie doesn’t mean to say it. Not like this, maybe not ever. Brody looks stunned — he stands, and waits a second before he goes to move toward her. Just one step, because Carrie puts her hands up in front of her. She feels like she’ll break if he touches her. “About three months.”

He nods to himself as he does the math. _Three months_ — it feels like forever since he’d left her, abandoned her to confront the rubble slowly becoming her life. “It’s mine?”

She lets out a sharp, bitter laugh. “It’s mine,” she corrects him, then pauses, unsure where that came from. “I thought you were dead,” she adds, and she knows she’s repeating herself, but she can’t deal with the look on his face, the hurt expression. She sighs. “But, yes. It’s probably yours, Brody.”

“ _Probably?”_ he echoes, his voice scaling sharply up. But she refuses to feel guilty about this. Any of it.

“Yeah. _Probably._ ” She exhales, looking away. “So I’m not gonna let you die.”

“Carrie…”

“Dana tried to kill herself,” Carrie informs him abruptly. Brody’s face goes white, and Carrie presses her lips together. “I guess Saul didn’t tell you that. She’s… okay now, I think. She’s doing better. Brody, if you can’t do this for you—”

“Are you even fucking listening to me, Carrie?” he exclaims, volume rising as he begins to pace, looking from the ceiling to the window to the floor, everywhere but at her. “I can’t get near Akbari. Now, at least I can…”

 _Live_ , she supplies automatically, with a shudder. He’s a hero _here_ , even if America sees things very differently. “You can live your life as a traitor to your country,” she says slowly, trying to appeal to the one thing she’s always known about him. “Or you can die for your country. Be a real hero.” His back is to her, but she can see all the tension in his clenched muscles. “I know what the Brody I _used_ to know would want.”

He doesn’t answer. He stills, looks very far away, gazes out into the street outside the Sherazi house. “But I think we can bring you home.”

She takes a step forward, closer to him, closing the distance; he turns. She rests her hand lightly on his forearm, and he jumps as if an electrical current is running through him.

Carrie will never know what it is, exactly, that convinces him — but she will always remember the exact moment that his face sags in resignation. “You can come home, Brody,” she repeats softly, running her fingers up to his elbow. “We can start over.”

In his eyes, when he looks at her, she can see the man she fell in love with. And he’s not the man who wore the vest, or made the video, or ran away when shit got too complicated.

Her hand drops, but she still feels it. The energy between them, the intensity. “Brody.”

“Yeah.”

“Is that a yes?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

Carrie moves back, turns away from him. “Quinn,” she says slowly, clearly. “You can come in now.”

-

“Congressman,” Quinn says coolly, shrugging off his jacket to reveal the Glock in his shoulder holster. “How long’s it been?” He leans casually against the wall, arms loosely folded; his shoulders are squared toward Brody, who has remained standing, tense and drawn.

“Since you fuckin’ stabbed me?” Brody snaps, the fire in his voice excessive when contrasted with Quinn’s laconic posture.

“Sure, let’s go with that.”

Carrie looks from one man to the other, her eyes lingering on Quinn in a silent plea for civility. “There are people tracking Akbari’s movements,” Carrie says, attempting to break through the awkwardness. She takes a seat on the couch, hoping they’ll follow, hoping they’ll at least _try_ to diminish some of the tension in the room. “Javadi said—”

Brody’s agitated, though. He wears stress like a hair shirt, twitchy and uncomfortable. “Nobody fuckin’ trusts Javadi.”

“He’s Akbari’s right hand man,” Carrie protests.

“Yeah, and he brought me here. You’d think he could get me closer than a hundred meters, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Quinn confirms. “So what the fuck happened?”

“What did Javadi tell you?” Brody asks. It’s obvious that he’s stalling, and obvious that Quinn’s practiced patience is beginning to fray.

“I’m asking you,” Quinn answers, at the same time Carrie appeals: “ _Brody_.”

Brody breaks first, looking away from Quinn. His fingers are tapping against his thigh and Carrie _remembers_ , wants to say something, wonders why he doesn’t have his beads _here_. “I met with Nassrin Mughrabi,” he shares, sounding reluctant — maybe wistful, too.

“Abu Nazir’s _wife_?” Carrie exclaims immediately.

Brody bristles. “Abu Nazir’s _widow_ ,” he corrects her, and Carrie is taken aback by the bitterness in his tone.

“Issa’s mother?” Carrie ventures softly. Brody nods tightly. “She’s in Tehran?”

“Motherfucker,” Quinn mutters, straightening. “She was fucking… _vetting_ you for Akbari, wasn’t she? What the fuck did you say to her?”

“I told her I bombed the fucking CIA, what do you _think_ I told her?”

“And?” Quinn challenges.

“And let me ask _you_ a question, asshole. What the fuck are _you_ doing here? Gonna finish the job?”

“For fuck’s sake,” Carrie interjects impatiently, rising, the third point in this fucked up triangle. “ _Brody_. We need to figure this out.”

Brody’s eyes narrow. “Did you think that too, Carrie? Did you think I bombed your workplace, killed all your friends?”

She looks away. “I didn’t _want_ to.”

Carrie isn’t sure what else she’s supposed to say. The bomb was in his car. The video… and Saul _told_ her, and she has never once in her life felt like Saul would… what? Lie to her? Use her to propel his fucking mission forward?

But she’d believed this.

“That’s not the point,” she adds quickly. “Brody, I…”

“Did you start fucking him because you thought I was dead, or because you thought I was a terrorist? _Again_.”

“None of your fucking business,” Quinn says sharply, taking a step forward. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

It’s still turning out better than she’d expected, Carrie muses, all things considered. “Enough,” she interrupts, though, looking from Brody to Quinn and back. “I’m not going to apologize for—” She stops. “This isn’t about me,” she adds. “Or Quinn.”

“No?” Carrie’s stomach flips at the complete and utter disbelief on Brody’s face. “What did you think would happen, Carrie? You tell me you’re pregnant, it’s _probably_ mine — is Quinn the other ‘maybe’?”

Carrie jerks her chin up at the implication, one that she acknowledges is not entirely inaccurate — historically, anyway. Still, it stings. “Brody…” What is she supposed to say? That she loves him? That she’s sorry?

She does. She’s  _not._

And whatever happens on the rest of this mission… does it even _matter?_  If Brody succeeds, if they bring him home…

“What did you say to Nassrin?” she asks finally, angling the conversation back to the mission. “Why do you think Akbari won’t meet you?”  

Brody shrugs. “Why would he? I got what I came here for, didn’t I? Nobody’s put a bullet in my head.”

“Because you…” Carrie trails off, not sure how to finish the sentence, because Brody didn’t—he’s  _not_ —the Langley bomber. And she’d been so fucking focused, so determined to save him, bring him home, get him out of this goddamn mess, that she hadn’t thought to wonder who, exactly, had planted the bomb in his car.

Was it even Nazir’s plan?

And why is Nassrin Mughrabi here?

“Akbari knows,” Carrie says, her forehead furrowing as the thoughts race through her head. “He fucking _knows_ — Quinn,” she whirls toward him. “He knows Brody’s not the real bomber. His own fucking government coordinated it.”

“You think Saul knew?” Quinn asks, catching on quickly. “He can’t.”

He _can’t_ , right? Carrie’s stumped for a moment — Saul hadn’t wanted Quinn here, just _her_. Carrie here, alone in Iran with no backup, no contacts. She’d had to practically beg Fara to put her in touch with Masud. Still. _Still_ , she’d trusted Saul. “Brody was never supposed to survive this,” Carrie realizes, stunned.

Publicly, Brody is the bomber — the fucking posterboy for the terrorists’ cause. The IRGC have no reason to harm him, not when he’s playing the game so well. He'd denounced his country in his goodbye video, he prays at Javadi’s own mosque — he rallies support every day.

But if he betrays Akbari the way he did Walden, then Brody will surely be executed. And _that_ is the plan, Carrie understands now, two birds with one stone. A needle and a noose.

“We need to get Brody out of here,” she announces, somehow forgetting, for the moment, that Brody is in the room.

“Carrie,” he says, and she looks back at him. “Where am I gonna go?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to greenpen, Leblanc1, and SNQA for advice and cheerleading! Thanks to everybody else for your patience. <3


	17. Chapter 17

Carrie Mathison is an excellent spy, but she’s a bad fucking liar. Peter has come to appreciate the dichotomy, particularly now, as her hormones amplify her emotions. 

It’s ironic as hell, but it’s the lies that highlight her honesty. It’s the lies that allow him to think, _maybe_. 

- 

He doesn’t know what he’d expected to happen, exactly, when Carrie reunited with Brody. More than a cajoling “we can start over,” that’s for damn sure. They haven’t embraced, she hasn’t accepted his judgment, she hasn’t said _I love you, I missed you,_ _I’m sorry._  

It might be for his benefit, but for all of his doubts, he doesn’t think it is. And it makes him feel like the biggest asshole on the planet. For putting distance between them, and not keeping it. For giving her his heart and not trusting her with it. 

Brody says her name, and Quinn blinks at the sound of the other man’s voice. “Where am I gonna go?” 

 _That’s a good question_ , Quinn thinks. He almost pities him now; if anybody in the world is better off dead, it’s probably Brody, caught in the void between innocence and guilt. Heroism and terrorism. Heaven and hell. 

“I think you should get out of Iran,” Quinn says, aware of the futility of the words before they’re even out of his mouth. 

“Obviously that’s the plan,” Carrie answers, and then her chin jerks back as she realizes he’s not speaking to Brody — maybe as she remembers that he couldn’t give a fuck less about Brody. “ _That’s_ not gonna happen,” she adds, comprehending, and she sits back down on the sofa, crossing her arms across her chest as if to punctuate her point.

Peter drags his hand through his short hair as he drops, frustrated, into the space beside her. “Yeah. I know.” It isn’t the time to argue — he doesn’t have to tell her that he’d feel better, concentrate better, _work_ better if he knew she was safely out of the way. He doesn’t know how much time he _has_. “Fuck me,” he mutters. 

He considers the situation. They can’t trust Saul, or anybody at the CIA, really. Dar? He doesn’t know what to think about Dar, won’t put their lives in his hands. Won’t put _Carrie’s_ life in his hands; he’s all too clear on his mentor’s feelings toward her. 

Just the people in this room, then. 

And he hates that, he hates that he needs to trust Brody almost as much as he _hates_ Brody. For her sake, he’s glad for the clarity; he doesn’t know if she’d ever have gotten over the guilt that’s been weighing so heavily on her, the thought that she’d misjudged him so badly. And he’s glad for himself, selfishly, because the man standing in front of them is so much less than the spectre that has been haunting his life — _their_ life — for months. So much time comparing himself to this asshole — a fucking terrorist dupe who had done precisely one good thing since returning from Afghanistan, and he’d had to kill a man to do it. 

“Tell me about Nazir’s wife,” Peter says finally, drawing himself up to meet Brody’s eyes. “She’s got access to Akbari, right?” 

Brody looks away, twitchy. “Dead end. She’d rather die than give him up — as far as she’s concerned, it’s a one-way ticket to paradise.” 

“Lucky her,” Quinn says drily, then, “you got a better idea?” 

“Wait,” Carrie interjects. “ _She_ thinks you bombed the CIA, doesn’t she?” 

“I told her I did.” Brody lets out a deep breath. His hands flex open and closed — he hasn’t stopped moving since he came into the house. 

“What if you told her you _didn’t?_ ” Quinn raises an eyebrow as he turns toward her, searching, waiting for the trick. “Tell her the truth. Javadi’s trying to undermine him. Demand a meet.” 

Quinn’s catching on. “How do we get him out?” 

“Akbari?” 

“ _Brody_ ,” Quinn says, wondering how she could possibly have missed this part. “That might get him face-to-face, but we need to extract him. He kills Akbari, Javadi assumes it’s his play.” 

He knows the answer to this. He wonders if she does, too; if maybe she just won’t say it. The truth is, he’d be happy to put the bullet in Akbari’s head himself. Carrie had railed against the idea in Saul’s office, before she’d known about Brody, ten minutes after they’d decided to make a life together. He wonders if anything’s changed. 

For him, it hasn’t. 

Carrie bites her lip, not meeting his gaze. It’s clear she’s come to the same conclusion. “I need to meet with Javadi.” 

“ _No_.” Quinn is surprised to find that he and Brody have spoken at the same time. He looks up, startled — finds Brody’s stare trained on him. 

“You don’t trust Saul, but you’re gonna trust Javadi? Come on, Carrie.” Brody is looking at her in a way that Peter can only describe as _wistful_ — disconcertingly so, and then he adds, “I’ve gotta do this.” 

“We can make a deal,” Carrie insists. Her tone is verging on desperate. “We hold _all_ the cards with Javadi, he knows that. We need to _use_ it.” 

“Saul—” Quinn starts. 

“There’s no love lost between Javadi and Saul,” she interrupts, frustrated. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend. It’s a proverb for a fucking reason.” 

“Carrie! You’re not putting yourself in the line of fire just because Saul fucked you over.” 

“It’s not worth it,” Brody adds. “You shouldn’t have come here in the first place.” 

Carrie’s mouth opens and closes, forehead wrinkling as she looks from Brody to Quinn. “I am a fucking CIA officer,” she says. “Excuse me if I don’t take orders from assassins and terrorists. I’m setting up a meet.”

“You don’t take orders from _anybody_ , Carrie,” Quinn snaps back. He remembers, clearly, his first briefing with Estes — may the asshole rest in peace. The Director of the goddamn CIA and even he couldn’t keep her in line. She wonders why she was fired, why Estes had brought him in to run the operation? “So don’t fuckin’ act like this petulant bullshit is unique to this situation.” 

“Fuck you,” she seethes back at him. “I suppose you have some kind of _brilliant_ plan to get us all out of here in one piece?” 

Currently, his plan is to haul her ass back to the hotel room and restrain her until it’s safe to leave. “Brody’s _right_. You saw what Javadi did to his ex-wife — why the _fuck_ would you trust him with this? Are you out of your fucking mind?” 

“We have a plan,” Brody interrupts. “And if you involve Majid Javadi, you will fuck it up.” 

“Because you know how terrorists _think_ , right?” Carrie challenges him. She leaps to her feet, hands balled into tight fists at her sides. Quinn stands quickly but warily after her; he meets Brody’s eyes over her the top of her head. “You sure had Nazir’s number, didn’t you?” 

“You were the expert,” Brody bites back. “You knew it all, didn’t you? About Abu Nazir, about me. How’s that worked out for you, Carrie?” 

“It—” Carrie pauses, letting out a deep breath as she turns away from Brody. Her shoulders slump. “Better than I thought it did.”

“We can play this three ways,” Peter says, seizing back control. Brody has begun to pace — Quinn marvels, wondering how Brody’s nervous energy had ever meshed with Carrie’s intensity. She hadn’t been off her meds, that he knows of, but Estes and even Saul had been in the dark about her condition for most of her career. And he has _seen_ her, has experienced her mania firsthand. No way she could have hidden it for so long if she hadn’t been managing it, at least mostly. 

So it wasn’t her condition that had opened her up to Brody. He wonders if she’ll ever tell him. He wonders if she’ll even be speaking to him at the end of this. 

“Okay,” Carrie says. A lot of the fight seems to have gone out of her. She turns her face back toward him, eyes wide and worried. She’s gone pale. Quinn steps forward and takes her by the elbow, firmly guiding her back to the couch. He lets her out of his grip, but not his sight, as he joins her. Peripherally, he sees that Brody has stopped moving, his back to the wall as he observes the two of them.

Quinn straightens. “We forget Akbari, forget Saul, just get Brody out. Javadi is still the highest-placed asset we’ve ever had.”

“That motherfucker set me up,” Brody protests immediately. “That’s not an option.” Peter had assumed as much. 

“Right,” Quinn agrees. “We can make it a two-man job, then. If you can get to Akbari, then I can set up and take him out. Kill Nassrin too, and you’d have a decent shot of making it out.” 

“ _You_ might not,” Carrie says, aghast. “Quinn, you can’t.” 

“This is what I do, Carrie,” he says gently. “I’ve gotten out of tight situations before. This is no different.” 

“What’s the third option?” 

“I go in alone,” Brody says, and it’s less of a suggestion than a statement. “That’s always been the plan.” 

“You’ll _die_ ,” Carrie says, her voice flat. “Brody, we can get you out. Fuck Danesh Akbari. If Saul wants this so fucking badly he can coordinate the mission himself.” 

“Carrie, if you’re right, then he’s the reason I’m here. His government planted the bomb. You really think anyone’s gonna get a better shot at this?” 

Tears are beginning to drip down her cheeks as she turns to Quinn for support. He’s never felt more helpless in his life than he is at the sight of her now. “Carrie, I can do it.” 

“You need to get her out,” Brody corrects him. And Quinn sees, then, the Marine that Brody must have been once, before he’d fallen under the spell of Abu Nazir. Peter’s a soldier — he’s seen the toils of war, has been on the wrong side of the Geneva Convention himself. He understands what torture does to a man, the psychological and physical stakes, and though he’s judged Nicholas Brody for many things, he has never blamed him for succumbing in the end. 

- 

Carrie agrees, finally — not that they’re giving her much choice. One way or another, they will be making an attempt on Akbari’s life. If Brody makes it outside the building — more likely with a sniper backing him up, but not impossible — Quinn is confident that they’ll be able to get Brody out of Tehran with minimal issue. 

“You might need to take out Nassrin Mughrabi, too,” Quinn points out, as they plan. “Will that be an issue?” 

Brody shakes his head. “It’d be an act of mercy.” 

They keep planning. 

- 

Brody keeps the cell phone she’d given him, and they agree to reconvene the following afternoon, after midday prayers. He goes to wherever the hell he lays his head at night, and Quinn accompanies his increasingly-fatigued ( _fuck_ , he doesn’t even know how to define what they are) _partner_ (he guesses) back to their hotel. 

“I was an asshole last night,” he says once they are alone again in their room. Carrie won’t look at him. She strips off her headscarf, kicks off her shoes, and crouches beside her suitcase to dig something out. “This whole fucking thing, Carrie…” 

She doesn’t acknowledge him, just rises with pajamas in hand — it’s still light outside, so he guesses they’re in for the night. Quinn slips out of his jacket and removes his holstered gun. He watches her as she walks into the bathroom, closing the door behind her without a word. There’s no invitation this time, spoken or implied, and he takes his own shoes off before he sits down on the bed, his back against the headboard. 

When the shower turns on, he closes his eyes. 

He’s fucking this up. Everything, all of it. From the second he’d learned Nicholas Brody was alive, he’d assumed that it was over between himself and Carrie. Their relationship had been forged in her grief and guilt, and he’d been prepared to accept that she was settling. 

But that’s not how she’s been acting. And he can’t pretend it just started today, either. 

They’ve been together for months now — when she hasn’t been committed or kidnapped, anyway, or when he hasn’t been in South America committing government-sanctioned murder. They’d started to build something together without even realizing they were doing it. 

The water stops, and he sighs, waiting. Not sure what to expect when she comes out. 

 _She’s taking her time_ , he thinks. He’s never been an impatient person, it’s not a quality that fits his life, but when it comes to Carrie, waiting is unbearable. Even though she’s likely still furious — but he loves that about her. He loves everything about her, which just goes to show how irrevocably fucked he is. 

The door opens, and she comes out, rubbing her wet hair with a towel. The brown dye hasn’t completely rinsed from her hair, and he sees the splotchy streaks of it on the fabric. She’s wearing yoga pants and a loose shirt — he thinks it’s his, actually — and he can’t remember the last time he’s seen her dressed for bed. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Quinn?” she asks, tossing the towel onto the back of a chair and then turning toward him, her arms crossed over her chest. 

Roughly what he’d expected. “Excuse me?” 

“I thought you were _done_ with this shit, Quinn. Two days ago you wanted to leave the agency to… and now you want to run off and get yourself killed. And for _what_?” 

“Brody—” 

“ _Fuck_ Brody,” she snaps. “What’s wrong with _you_ , Quinn? You’ve barely said two words to me since we left DC, and now…” She lets out a deep breath and sits on the far side of the bed, not looking at him. 

And he just waits. He’s always fucking waiting for her, has been since the day they met. “Carrie,” he says quietly. She turns slightly, bringing one knee up onto the bed — waiting too, he thinks. “C’mere.” 

She swallows hard. “I never wanted to make this your problem.” 

“You didn’t.” He means it, too. He rarely does anything he doesn’t want to — he feels like she should _know_ that. After all this time, she should know. “I’m trying to help.” 

“You think that getting yourself _killed_ is helpful?” 

“That’s not what this is,” he insists, but it’s so much easier to tell her what it isn’t. “Carrie…” _Fuck it_ , he thinks, because even if he had the words, he doubts she’d want to hear them. So he sits up, stretching a little to slide his right hand under her left, interlacing their fingers and resting on her thigh. It takes him a few seconds to realize that she’s crying; when he does, he lets go. 

On some level he’s relieved, though he can’t pinpoint why. He fucking hates it when she cries — but he can _deal_ with it, he realizes. “Come here,” he says again, this time sitting all the way up to slide his arm around her waist, physically pulling her into his lap before settling back against the pillows. 

Carrie curls into him, her forehead pressing into his neck. He can feel her tears burning into his skin, her hiccuped breath hot on his collarbone. If he tries to speak, he’s sure he’ll fuck it up, so he just holds her, his palm resting on the small of her back. She’s so small — he forgets that sometimes, because she’s strong, too. 

He doesn’t know how much time passes before her breathing starts to slow, but when she regains control, she straightens, reaching up to brush the tears off her face. She looks up at him — their eyes only meet for an instant before she raises her hand to the side of his face, her thumb skimming gently along his cheekbone. Her gaze follows her fingertips, deliberately avoiding him. 

Quinn can’t stop staring at her. 

“Don’t _do_ that,” she finally says. She’s beginning to blush; she’s endearing at the worst times. 

“What?” he asks quietly. He can’t help tightening his arm around her. 

Carrie looks up at him for the briefest moment before dropping her hand, letting it come to rest over his heart. “Don’t _look_ at me like that.” 

“Like _what_?” he pushes. 

“Like… fuck, Quinn, I don’t—” she lets out a breath before she finally turns back to him. “Like you can read my mind, or… or see into my fucking _soul_ or something.” 

He can’t help but smile a little at that. “I wish.” 

She smiles back, but it fades quickly as she presses her lips together. “I can’t be responsible for putting you in the line of fire, Quinn. I _won’t_.” 

This time he’s the one who looks away. He’s been anticipating this conversation for so long — _too_ long to be this wary of it; the plan is going forward and they both know it. But that’s not precisely the issue, either. 

“Brody’ll be in more danger, Carrie.” He knows he’s stating the obvious, but he needs her to acknowledge it. 

“That’s different,” she says immediately. 

“Why?” 

Her eyebrows go up, somehow taken back by the question. Right now, he _does_ know what she’s thinking — he’s never asked her so plainly, not about this. “Quinn,” she says. He squeezes her hip almost involuntarily; her hand slides up to his shoulder but she looks away — it’s fucking crazy how close they are physically when they can’t even maintain eye contact. 

“Because he’s not mine anymore. I’m not sure he ever was.” Carrie shrugs slightly, a little helpless. 

“Do you want him to be?” he asks, before he can stop himself. “Yours?” 

Her eyes fly up to his face. She looks more astonished than she has any right to be, but her eyes are dry and her voice is full of resolve when she says, “No. Quinn, no.” 

Peter doesn’t realizes he’s been holding his breath until he releases it. “I didn’t know that,” he admits. 

She releases a breath too, but it’s almost a laugh. He feels relieved. She shifts in his arms, moving to straddle him — her hair is still wet, her face is streaked with tears, she’s a goddamn mess — but her eyes are bright, and she’s smiling as she hooks her elbow around his neck to pull him closer. 

“I got that,” she says drily. “You haven’t been particularly subtle.” 

“You could have said something,” he mutters. 

“Like what?” she challenges him, almost teasing. 

He lets his head fall back, and winces when it thumps loudly back against the headboard. He blinks up at the ceiling, thoroughly defeated by her — but not prepared to surrender, or to let her off the hook. 

“Oh Christ, Quinn,” she sighs, straightening as she pulls back from him. “You know what it’s been like — what _I’ve_ been like. After everything that happened, what was I supposed to say? That… that somewhere between the sympathy sex and the sixty pregnancy tests, I’d fallen in love with you? Because even to me, that sounds fucking crazy.” 

It does. It does sound _fucking crazy._ And it isn’t often that Quinn finds himself speechless, but with her, it seems to happen a lot. He’s wracking his brain. “Carrie…” 

“But it doesn’t feel crazy,” she adds quietly, and Quinn realizes, finally, that the other shoe isn’t going to drop. “I love you.” 

 _Fuck_ , he’s a fucking asshole. His hand smoothes up her spine as he pulls her to him. “Fuck me,” he mutters, turning her gently as he leans her carefully into the mattress. He stares at her for a long moment before covering her mouth with his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU, as usual, to leblanc1. 
> 
> Sorry for the wicked delay, guys. We're in the home stretch!


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